Preamble

Preamble

PRIVATE BUSINESS

SHETLAND ISLANDS COUNCIL ORDER CONFIRMATION

LERWICK HARBOUR ORDER CONFIRMATION

GAIRLOCH PIERS ORDER CONFIRMATION

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Premium Bonds (Gift Vouchers)

Gross National Product

European Community (Finance Ministers)

Defence Expenditure

Budget (Representations)

National Debt

Corporation Tax

Public Sector Borrowing Requirement

Working Widows (Taxation)

Inflation

Gilt Edged Security Market

Value Added Tax

North Sea Oil and Gas

SOUTHERN AFRICA

PRIME MINISTER (ENGAGEMENTS)

DEVOLUTION

BRITISH AMBASSADOR, THE HAGUE

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.

ROYAL ASSENT

ROAD TRAFFIC (SEAT BELTS) BILL

FIREARM CERTIFICATES

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.

LEGAL AID AND ADVICE

ELECTRICITY

PROCEDURE

DIVORCE LAWS

Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

Preamble

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

CHESHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [Lords] (By Order)

Order for Second Reading read.

To be read a Second time upon Tuesday next.

EAST KILBRIDE DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL (By Order)

GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL (By Order)

Orders for Second Reading read.

To be read a Second time upon Thursday next.

SHETLAND ISLANDS COUNCIL ORDER CONFIRMATION

Mr. Secretary Millan presented a Bill to confirm a Provisional Order under section 7 of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936, relating to Shetland Islands Council: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be considered upon Wednesday next and to be printed. [Bill 121.]

LERWICK HARBOUR ORDER CONFIRMATION

Mr. Secretary Millan presented a Bill to confirm a Provisional Order under section 7 of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936, relating to Lerwick Harbour: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be considered upon Wednesday next and to be printed. [Bill 120.]

GAIRLOCH PIERS ORDER CONFIRMATION

Mr. Secretary Millan presented a Bill to confirm a Provisional Order under section 7 of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936, relating to Gairloch Piers: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be considered upon Wednesday next and to be printed. [Bill 119.]

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Premium Bonds (Gift Vouchers)

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will arrange to make the purchase of premium bond gift vouchers possible at post offices.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Robert Sheldon): National savings gift tokens are sold in denominations of £1, £2 and £5 and can be exchanged for premium savings bonds. There would not appear to be any need for a special premium savings bond gift voucher.

Mr. Lewis: Is the Minister aware that since I put the question down events have caught up with premium bond savings and there are now no bonds? How will that be dealt with? People cannot get their money or their prizes, and the Government are making a profit. On the question on the Order Paper, may I say to the Minister that it is extremely difficult—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member may say nothing to the Minister. He may only ask a question. The hon. Member has asked two questions, but he may ask a third briefly.

Mr. Lewis: Is the Minister aware that it is extremely difficult for grandparents to buy premium bonds for their grandchildren? The Government are losing money as a result.

Mr. Sheldon: National savings gift tokens are widely used for the purchase of premium savings bonds, and that situation is satisfactory. If it were to change, I should consider it further. There are problems with repayments of savings certificates, save-as-you-earn and premium bonds as a result of the dispute. Until last week urgent repayments were made on savings certificates. There have since been further problems, and these savings certificates are not available at present.

Mr. Peter Rees: Will the Financial Secretary acknowledge publicly that the Government have an obligation to those who wish to draw their interest or capital on the due dates? Will he also announce


publicly that the Government will pay compensation or damages—however he chooses to describe it—to those who have been prejudiced in this way, whether through industrial action or other administrative problems?

Mr. Sheldon: There are problems with the documents acting as securities and therefore attracting interest that need to be closely considered. I accept the principle of recompense.

Mr. Christopher Price: Whatever action the Government take, will my right hon. Friend accept that it is foolish to threaten civil servants with dismissal or suspension if they refuse to do other people's jobs and break strikes?

Mr. Sheldon: There are a number of difficult circumstances here. We have the right to insist that work is done for payment made. The maintenance of the public service must be protected.

Gross National Product

Mr. Radice: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his estimate of the future prospects for growth in United Kingdom gross national product compared with the average for OECD countries.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Denis Healey): I ask my hon. Friend to await publication of the Government's economic forecast with the Budget on April 3.

Mr. Radice: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Does he agree with the Government-TUC statement that the faster we can bring down the rate of inflation, the more likely we are to achieve a European rate of economic growth?

Mr. Healey: Yes, I think the single most important aspect of the statement to which my hon. Friend referred was the agreement between the Government and the TUC that while we may aim at European growth rates, we shall not achieve them unless we achieve the inflation rates which are common among our European competitors.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: Since there is now general acceptance that there is an inescapable relationship between the growth of GNP and the availability of national

energy supplies, will the Chancellor say upon which premises his forecasts are based?

Mr. Healey: I have not announced a forecast. If the hon. Member is asking about the likely availability of energy this year, I remind him that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy undertook, with other representatives at the International Energy Association meeting, that we would aim at a 5 per cent. cut in the use of oil in this country. However, in our case that will be made up by increased coalburn and by other methods which will be announced to the House in due course.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: My right hon. Friend the Chancellor mentioned his Budget. Will he give an assurance that the industrial dispute now in progress will not in any way interfere with his Budget, with his prophecies or with his estimates, right or wrong?

Mr. Healey: I cannot give such an assurance, as I think my hon. Friend very well knows.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: The Chancellor will have noticed yesterday's report from OECD that inflation in the year ahead is likely to run at 12 per cent. or thereabouts and that the growth of domestic product, excluding oil, is likely to be about 1 per cent. Is he aware that manufacturing output in this country is still lower than it was 10 years ago? Is not that a disastrous commentary on the right hon. Gentleman's five-year tenure of office at the Treasury?

Mr. Healey: I read the OECD forecast. As was pointed out by the OECD when it launched the report in Paris, it was compiled a couple of months ago when the outlook for wage inflation was a great deal worse than it has become since the recent Government agreement with the TUC.

European Community (Finance Ministers)

Mr. Skinner: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he expects next to meet his EEC counterparts; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Healey: I next expect to meet Community Finance Ministers at the meeting of the Finance Council in Brussels on 14 May.

Mr. Skinner: Will my right hon. Friend remind the other Ministers that when Britain refused to join the European monetary system the pound went up in value in relation not only to the dollar but to the franc and the mark? Will he point out that when my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister decided to attack the EEC budget contributions it went up again? Is it not clear that every time we make these anti-Market moves we improve the chances not only of the pound in relation to these other currencies, but of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor staying in his job?

Mr. Healey: I do not know with what equanimity I can contemplate the fate that my hon. Friend has mapped out for me for the long-term. However, what he says is true. The pound has been strong in relation to other currencies for the past two months. I do not think that that has been because we decided not to join the EMS. It has been because we have been following fiscal and monetary policies which form a shining contrast to those of the Conservative Party. I note what my hon. Friend says about the Community itself.

Mr. Alan Clark: Why does the Chancellor not refer the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), who relates anti-European measures to the strength of the pound, to the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Gould) who is also anti-European and believes that the value of the pound should be reduced by stages?

Mr. Healey: I have every confidence that my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) will ensure that those who otherwise share his views will share his view on the value of a strong and stable pound.

Mr. Gould: Is my right hon. Friend aware that if it were not for our £1,000 million contribution to the EEC budget our EEC colleagues would have to find that sum for themselves, and that if we were not consuming EEC food surpluses at twice the world price those surpluses would be even more expensive to dispose of? Since the Common Market could not survive without our participation, will my right hon. Friend ignore the feeble faint hearts on the Opposition Front Bench and recognise the strength of our negotiating position?

Mr. Healey: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Gould) for not raising the question of the exchange rate. That must be a record in the House in recent years. I thank him for asking me to perservere in doing good, which I certainly propose to do. I assure him that I persistently ignore the faint hearts on the Opposition Front Bench and shall continue to do so for many years to come.

Mr. Lawson: Why are the Government refusing to pay contributions on the basis of the EEC's 1979 budget, as enlarged by the European Assembly, since it was only the Chief Secretary's refusal to veto that enlargement that allowed it through in the first place? Did the Chief Secretary by any chance make a blunder?

Mr. Healey: It is absolutely inconceivable that my right hon. Friend should have made a blunder, but as the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) knows, from the nature of his question, we, along with several other countries, are refusing to make a contribution which would otherwise be made because we do not accept the view that the Assembly has determined the nature of the current budget. We shall be sorting out that question in the near future.
The hon. Member seems to be suffering from some defect in his arm which causes him to raise it and shiver it. No doubt you will take note of his behaviour, Mr. Speaker, and act accordingly.

Mr. Speaker: If matters go on like this much longer I shall suffer from the same weakness.

Defence Expenditure

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how the Government's decision to increase military spending will be affected by cash limits.

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Joel Barnett): I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave on 23 February to my hon. Friend the Member for Thornaby (Mr. Wrigglesworth) in the Official Report, Vol. 963, c. 334–5.

Mr. Jenkins: If cash limits can be breached so easily for defence purposes, why are they sacrosanct elsewhere?

Mr. Barnett: My hon. Friend is wrong in his first premise, so the second part of the question does not stand.

Mr. Adley: If the Government are to put taxpayers' money to any useful purpose, is it not worth while putting it where it could provide a useful return? Will the Government consider allocating further funds for the Defence Sales Organisation so that we may try to sell more aircraft and tanks to the Chinese, for example, which would help our balance of payments?

Mr. Barnett: Not surprisingly, I am blessed if I can see what the hon. Gentleman's question has to do with the question on the Order Paper. Defence sales are separate from cash limits.

Budget (Representations)

Mr. Canavan: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what representations he has received about the contents of the forthcoming Budget; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what recent consultations he has had with organisations representing smaller business in formulating his Budget judgment.

Mr. Healey: I have received representations from a large number of individuals and organisations and am considering these in formulating my Budget. The House will not expect me to make any further comment at this stage.

Mr. Canavan: Instead of imposing the savage cuts in public expenditure which are being demanded by the Tories and by the Treasury bureaucrats who have consistently overestimated our public sector borrowing requirement, will my right hon. Friend try to increase public expenditure in order to improve the essential services, to create more jobs and to improve essential items such as child benefits and retirement pensions?

Mr. Healey: My hon. Friend will know that the Government are planning to increase public expenditure this year. The House approved our plans last Monday. I do not think that it is fair to accuse the forecasters in the Treasury or elsewhere of consistently overestimating the PSBR. They underestimated it by £4,000 million in 1974.

Mr. Winterton: Will the Chancellor tell the House what specific organisations representing small business he has seen recently in the course of formulating his Budget proposals? Does he agree that smaller business can be the section of industry that will help to solve the unemployment problem? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree also that smaller business very easily suffers cash flow difficulties and that he should therefore not lightly propose to the House an increase in national insurance contributions, which could be very damaging to the potential of smaller business?

Mr. Healey: I have noted the hon. Gentleman's comments. He will not expect me to comment on my proposals in the forthcoming Budget. I assure him, however, that I attach great importance to the health and efficiency of small business. That is why the Government have made a large number of concessions to that sector in the last year—concessions which were not made by the previous Government.

Dr. Bray: To remedy the omission of my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Gould), and while, of course, observing the convention that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor never mentions the exchange rate, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he agrees that, as he prepares his Budget proposals, he is somewhat relieved to see that the pound has eased a little?

Mr. Healey: I do not think that anyone can accuse me or my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Gould) of never mentioning the exchange rate. As I have said on many occasions in the House, I believe that a stable exchange rate is of great advantage to this country. I am pleased to see that the CBI has shifted its view on this matter and that it now regards stability in the exchange rate as a better thing for British business than attempting to solve problems by depreciation.

Mr. Peter Rees: Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer tell the House whether he has received representations from groups of taxpayers who are represented by trade unions for forgiveness of their existing tax liabilities in his forthcoming Budget?

Mr. Healey: No. Sir.

Mr. Hoyle: Will my right hon. Friend introduce an expansionist Budget—lowering the interest rate and introducing meaningful import controls? If he does that he could be capped in the role of Father Christmas.

Mr. Healey: The House will note that we have recently reduced the minimum lending rate. Market rates are now about 3 per cent. lower than they were a month ago. I hope that the process will continue. I shall consult my barber on the question of Father Christmas.

Mr. Higgins: It is now apparent that the Inland Revenue broke with precedent in negotiating with trade unions a general tax amnesty for casual workers in Fleet Street. Will the Chancellor take account of representations that section 1 of the Taxes Act 1970 should be altered to limit the discretion of the Inland Revenue to give group amnesties?

Mr. Healey: I shall take account of all representations that are made to me.

National Debt

Mr. Rost: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the percentage increase in the national debt, and the percentage increase in servicing it, since February 1974.

Mr. Robert Sheldon: To the nearest available dates, the percentage increase in the outstanding national debt between 31 March 1974 and 31 March 1978, at constant March 1974 prices, was about 5 per cent. The percentage increase between the interest payable in 1973–74 and in 1977–78, at constant 1973–74, prices was about 14 per cent.

Mr. Rost: Has not the right hon. Gentleman cooked the figures again? What will people say to the Chancellor of the Exchequer if they ever find out that the Government have more than doubled the national debt? How does the Chancellor propose to repay the amount that he has borrowed and squandered on behalf of the British people?

Mr. Sheldon: I shall ignore the last part of the question because it is an obvious piece of nonsense. In relation to the gross national product, the national debt has declined. In 1973–74 the amount of national debt, as a proportion of the

gross national product, was 55¼ per cent. Last year it was 54½ per cent. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will take note of that.

Mr. Flannery: Will my right hon. Friend take into account the horrific increase in our national debt to the Common Market? Will he provide some answers as to how we can be rid of the national debt which the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Rost) seems to ignore? Will he level matters by reference to the common agricultural policy and our possible withdrawal if proper terms are not reached?

Mr. Sheldon: The correct way to deal with the difficulties of debt arising from the considerable repayments is to pursue the vigorous policy of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.

Mr. Lawson: The Financial Secretary is trying to confuse the House. Is it not the case that, in straightforward money terms, the Government have added more to the national debt in five years of office than have all the previous Administrations over the past 300 years? When he makes comparisons with 1974 prices, is he satisfied that, at constant 1974 prices, the burden of interest on the national debt—a burden for future generations to bear—has risen by about 50 per cent.?

Mr. Sheldon: The hon. Gentleman chooses real terms when it suits him and money terms when they support his argument. In practice, interest payments are not as he states. In real terms—that is the only way to look at it—interest payments were 3·1 per cent. in 1973–74 and rose to 3·5 per cent. in 1977–78.

Mr. Rost: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of that deliberately misleading answer. I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

Corporation Tax

Mr. Clemitson: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the total amount paid by the 100 largest companies in corporation tax expressed as a percentage of profits declared in each of the past five years for which figures are available.

Mr. Robert Sheldon: Information in the form requested is not readily available, but corporation tax receipts this year are expected to be about £4 billion.

Mr. Clemitson: Is it not true that, whether corporation tax is seen as a percentage of GDP or as a percentage of the total tax obtained, British companies pay considerably less than their counterparts in our major competitor countries? If we are to look for the real reasons for our poor economic performance should we not look elsewhere than at the so-called disincentive effects of taxation?

Mr. Sheldon: I have always felt that the arguments about incentives in taxation are much more complex than are frequently allowed for in debate in the House. My hon. Friend will be aware that stock relief and capital allowances reduce the intake of corporation tax, for very good reasons. First, because of investment that is undertaken, and, secondly, because if that were not undertaken we would find that, in real terms, negative profits could be taxed.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: Has the Financial Secretary noticed that the Governor of the Bank of England and the OECD have said clearly in the past few weeks that profits in this country are at a dangerously low level—lower than they are in any of our competitor countries, for example, France, Germany and the United States? Will he confirm that, apart from corporation tax, this year British industry will pay almost £4,000 million in national insurance surcharge? Will he take that as a clear warning that it would be the height of folly for the national insurance surcharge to be increased in the forthcoming Budget?

Mr. Sheldon: The right hon. and learned Gentleman cannot exclude corporation tax as one of the payments that companies make. If that is taken into account with the national insurance surcharge he will see that, by comparison with other countries, British companies do not bear the heavy burden that he is trying to impute to them. In many other countries there is a near equivalent of our national insurance surcharge. Those countries pay very much larger amounts in that way.

Mr. Hooley: Is it not a fact that the number of major multinational companies

based in the United Kingdom are not paying any mainstream corporation tax in the current financial year? How will my right hon. Friend remedy that?

Mr. Sheldon: There are good reasons why certain companies do not pay large amounts of mainstream corporation tax; for example, investment and stock relief. For the reasons that I mentioned earlier, it is right that those beliefs should be given. We should be aware that the problem of reaching a final conclusion on these matters is becoming urgent. We are anxiously awaiting the agreed solution of the accountancy profession, which will provide for the more rational continuance of corporation tax in the manner in which it was originally devised.

Mr. Hordern: Does the Financial Secretary agree that the high nominal rate of corporation tax is misleading? It produces very little revenue when compared with other taxes. Will the right hon. Gentleman look with equanimity on the considerable growth in leasing activities and other means of reducing the burden of corporation tax?

Mr. Sheldon: The hon. Gentleman is correct. The rate of corporation tax is not in close relationship to its yield, for the reasons that I have given. Leasing represents considerable problems. There are considerable advantages in leasing, for both the customer of the investment products and the manufacturer. The matter should be closely examined.

Public Sector Borrowing Requirement

Mr. Michael Latham: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will make a statement on his latest estimate of the size of the public sector borrowing requirement in (a) the current and (b) the next financial year.

Mr. Joel Barnett: A preliminary estimate of the PSBR for this year will be included in the Financial Statement and Budget Report. For the PSBR for 1979–80, I have nothing to add to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's comments to the House in the debate on 25 January.

Mr. Latham: Is it still the Government's view that next year the public sector borrowing requirement can be held at £8·5 billion, assuming an average earnings increase of 7 per cent.? If not, what do they intend to do about it?

Mr. Barnett: The hon. Gentleman and the House would do well to await the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Budget Statement.

Mr. Pavitt: In exercising his judgment on public sector borrowing and private expenditure, will the Chancellor take into account that this year we have spent privately £12,000 million on cigarettes, wine and gambling and that that is half as much again as the total public expenditure on the National Health Service? Ought not that to be taken into consideration in my right hon. Friend's judgment on his Budget Statement?

Mr. Barnett: I assure my hon. Friend that his comments and the many thousands of others are taken into account in my right hon. Friend's judgment.

Working Widows (Taxation)

Mr. Durant: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will examine the taxation treatment of working widows.

Mr. Robert Sheldon: The tax treatment of all widows is kept under constant review.

Mr. Durant: Is the Minister aware of the anger of working widows who find that when they get their pay slips at the end of the week and compare them with those of married women working alongside them they find that they have less take-home pay because they have no married woman's allowance and their widows' pensions are taxed? Will the Government look urgently at that matter?

Mr. Sheldon: As the hon. Gentleman knows, I am aware of that difficulty, which a number of widows face without fully understanding the reasons for it. The House knows that the reasons are simple. The widow receives a pension which is taxed at her place of work. If she compares her pay slip with that of a married colleague who does not receive such a pension, she will see that she has a greater deduction. As long as the reasons for that are understood, I think that they will come to be accepted.

Mr. Noble: Is it not time that the Treasury recognised the need for a special householder's allowance? Will my right hon. Friend recognise that many widows and widowers have to meet additional

household expenses that are not met by many other single people? Will he consider the question of a special allowance?

Mr. Sheldon: My hon. Friend knows that this matter has been looked at repeatedly. I am glad to note that he includes widowers among those who suffer in this way. However, he will also be aware that a similar situation is faced by divorced and separated people and by those in a number of other categories. Once we start extending help into those areas, we shall cover a very large number of people.

Inflation

Mr. Neubert: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the latest annual rate of inflation.

Mr. Flannery: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the current rate of inflation; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Temple-Morris: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the current rate of inflation.

Mr. Healey: The retail price index rose by 9·6 per cent. in the 12 months up to February 1979. It is essential for the country's economic prospects that we make progress as soon as possible towards reducing the rate to 5 per cent. This will require moderate pay settlements.

Mr. Neubert: With the approach of another general election, will the Chancellor take this opportunity of redeeming his reputation by giving an accurate prediction of the trend of inflation? Does he accept the OECD forecast that in the second half of this year inflation will be running at 12¼ per cent.?

Mr. Healey: I said in answer to an earlier question that the OECD forecast was compiled at a time when the expectation was that earnings would increase this year on the basis of settlements at the sort of level reached after the lorry drivers' strike. All forecasters have revised their figures downwards since then.
Since the hon. Gentleman has raised the sordid and squalid questions of elections, I must tell him that when the Government fought the general election that swept them into office in February 1974


the 12–month inflation rate was 13·2 per cent. and the three-month inflation rate, which the Leader of the Opposition chose to quote in the House the other day, was 17·7 per cent.

Mr. Flannery: Does my hon. Friend remember—and in the annals of inflation it is almost historic—the runaway rate of inflation that we inherited from the previous Tory Government? Will he expatiate a little on that and extend his imagination to the situation that could arise following the massive handouts that a Tory Government would give to their chums if a mental aberration on the part of the electorate ever allowed another Conservative Government to come to power?

Mr. Healey: I fear that if I expatiated and used my imagination you might call me to a halt, Mr. Speaker. I content myself by referring to facts. If the Conservative Party ever comes into power, increased indirect taxes on the scale that it has been mentioning, increased house rents through the abolition of housing subsidies and raised commuter fares caused by the abolition of subsidies to the railway service would produce a rate of inflation that would dwarf even that which we inherited from the last Conservative Government five years ago.

Mr. Temple-Morris: The Chancellor has already mentioned the much-vaunted agreement between the Government and the TUC. Does he agree that an integral and important part of that agreement is that efforts should be made to get inflation down to 5 per cent. within three years? If the Government get on as well with the TUC as they keep telling us, why wait three years?

Mr. Healey: I agree with what the hon. Gentleman said about one of the objectives of our agreement. I said that in my answer. I am discussing with the TUC how we can reach the critical path to that commonly desired objective.

Mr. Stoddart: Bearing in mind the direction of inflation and the desirability of getting it down to 5 per cent., can my right hon. Friend give an assurance that in his forthcoming Budget he will not put on any extra expenditure taxes which will affect the prices index?

Mr. Healey: I fear that if I gave such an assurance at this time, I might be drummed out of the Brownies.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: Does the Chancellor recollect that the fashion for using the three-monthly inflation rate was set not by by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition but by himself at the time of the election in October 1974, when he and the Government just crept into power? Does he recollect that that was when he gave his notorious forecast that the inflation rate would be 8·4 per cent.? Does he accept that, on the same basis, the inflation rate is now running at 13·3 per cent? Is that not a disgraceful situation?

Mr. Healey: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is wrong again. There has been more sloppy homework by his researchers. The 8·4 per cent. figure was not a forecast. It was a statement of the three-monthly inflation rate. I confess that I was a little surprised when the Leader of the Opposition, after attacking for five years the use of a three-monthly inflation rate, chose to resurrect it on Tuesday.

Gilt Edged Security Market

Mr. Watkinson: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he remains satisfied with the workings of the gilt edged security market.

Mr. Healey: The gilt edged market has made possible net sales of Government stock outside the banking system totalling nearly £21 billion in the period from April 1974 to December 1978. This enormous capacity has been vital to the maintenance of the public services during a very difficult period. However, the Government are always looking for ways of improving the functioning of the market The announcement last week of a minimum rather than fixed subscription price for today's issue of 12¼ per cent. Exchequer 1999 should help to avoid the difficulties that arose on 22 February when there was a substantial unforeseen change in market sentiment between the announcement of new issues and the due date for subscriptions.

Mr. Watkinson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is something deeply offensive about the vast and easy profits made on the gilt edged market in


recent weeks? Does he also agree that the market was able to force a dangerous and unwarranted rise in interest rates, and can he say whether the new tender issue has proven a means whereby speculators can be killed off and interest rates can be kept down?

Mr. Healey: As I told the House, we have introduced a modified tender system for the current issue which will avoid the difficulties that arose on 22 February. I am glad to say that there have been very heavy applications for that stock today, but it has not been oversubscribed, and therefore the problems that arose on 22 February and the means of meeting them have not turned out to be relevant.

Mr. Brooke: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that recent disorders in the market owe more to the umpire and the linesmen than to the players on the field?

Mr. Healey: There is a blinding light on the pitch tonight all right. A lot of the disorder in the market recently, and particularly the fall in the financial markets and gilt edged prices yesterday, was due to a rumour, which I trust to be totally without foundation, that there might in the near futuure be a general election which would put the Conservative Party into power.

Mr. Ashley: How does the Chancellor of the Exchequer square the answer that he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Watkinson) about relatively easy profits with the answer that he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Noble) who asked for a household allowance, and the rejection of that allowance by the Treasury? How does he reconcile the two?

Mr. Healey: I say to my hon. Friend what I have said to all hon. Members. I take careful note of the views they have put to me about action in the current Budget. I would be in serious danger if I were to indicate any action which might follow from the very careful consideration which I give.

Mr. Peter Rees: While appreciating the candour of the Chancellor's initial answer to his hon. Friend, may I take him back to an answer given by his right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary?

Will the Chancellor state explicitly that there will be monetary compensation for those holding Government paper who are unable to withdraw their capital or their interest on the due dates?

Mr. Healey: We shall accept responsibility for the interest in this case.

Value Added Tax

Mr. David Atkinson: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer why a family brick ice cream is subject to value added tax.

Mr. Robert Sheldon: All ice cream, together with confectionery, soft drinks, crisps and similar snack foods, is subject to value added tax which, like other taxes, is imposed to raise the necessary revenue.

Mr. Atkinson: Is it not ridiculous that housewives can buy sweet courses such as ice cream, custard and yoghurt that are tax-free but that she has to pay an extra 8 per cent. on her family ice cream brick? Is not this unnecessary discrimination against the ice cream manufacturers, and will the Chancellor use the opportunity in his forthcoming Budget to remedy this anomaly?

Mr. Sheldon: I am afraid that this is an inevitable consequence of VAT which has to make these distinctions. The hon. Gentleman may not recall, though other hon. Members certainly will, that when VAT was introduced it was supposed to be a broad-based tax free from anomalies. This is one of the anomalies inherent in the tax, and it is my task to implement it as best I can.

Mrs. Wise: Will my right hon. Friend remind the Opposition that it was the Conservatives who introduced value added tax in the first place? Will he confirm that the really important taxes on food are the import levies which are exacted on foods imported from outside the EEC, many of which are staple foods, the prices of which have increased considerably because of these import levies?

Mr. Sheldon: There is no question about import levies, but I will add to the point made by my hon. Friend that at present 50 per cent. of the articles in the value added tax system are zero-rated. To go any further in this direction would be to make it a much more narrowly-based tax even than the one introduced by the Conservatives in 1972.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: Does the Financial Secretary acknowledge that when VAT was first introduced it was visualised that it would be refundable or rebateable to firms in the construction industry, the pharmaceutical industry and in relation to the export trade? Is he aware that as a result of the current industrial dispute many firms in those industries are now suffering growing embarrassment due to the Government's failure to pay the refunds due to them? Can the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that more effective action will be taken to see that those firms do not run into serious cash flow difficulties, with mounting unemployment?

Mr. Sheldon: There are obvious problems for a number of firms as a result of the computer being out of action due to the industrial dispute. I hope that it will not be long before these refunds are made. Meanwhile, I hope that the other alternatives available to firms to find sources of finance to make good any deficiencies will be employed by them.

North Sea Oil and Gas

Mr. Whitney: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the estimate of the benefit to the balance of payments of North Sea oil and gas production for the years 1978–79 and 1979–80.

Mr. Joel Barnett: The October 1978 economic progress report included estimates of the direct and identifiable contribution of the North Sea programme to the current account of the balance of payments. For 1978 and 1979, these were £3 billion and £4½ billion respectively, both at 1977 prices. At current prices, it is now estimated that the contribution for 1978 was about £3½ billion.

Mr. Whitney: When the right hon. Gentleman compares those figures with the dismal prospects for the overall balance of payments outturn, will he agree, even at this late hour, that this is a manifestation of the tragic cost and waste of a national opportunity caused by his Socialist policies?

Mr. Barnett: The only dismal prospect for the balance of payments would be if by any mischance the hon. Gentleman and his right hon. and hon. Friends were ever to come into power in this country.

SOUTHERN AFRICA

Mr. Blaker: asked the Prime Minister whether he has any plans to visit Southern Africa.

The Prime Minister (Mr. James Callaghan): Yes, Sir. I hope to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Lusaka in August.

Mr. Blaker: However that may be, will the Prime Minister say why the Government are so opposed to the sending of observers to the Rhodesian elections, whether sent by the Government or by the House? Is it because they believe that that would amount to recognition of the elections? Is the Prime Minister not aware that his predecessor, with all his experience of Rhodesia, has publicly said that observers should be sent? Does the Prime Minister imagine that his predecessor believes that that would amount to recognition?

The Prime Minister: I have nothing to add to the answer that I gave on this matter a week or two ago.

Mr. Grocott: Will my right hon. Friend take every opportunity to explain to the world the farce of the forthcoming rigged election in Rhodesia, in which already 28 per cent. of the seats have been allotted to 4 per cent. of the population? Does he agree that Smith knows as much about running a democracy as the Tory Party knows about achieving social justice?

The Prime Minister: The important thing in Rhodesia is to secure a settlement acceptable to all the major parties there. Unfortunately, it does not seem that this election, either because of the composition of the new Assembly or because of the circumstances under which it is held—namely, the extension of guerrilla activity—is likely to produce a result that will be sustainable. In those circumstances, it seems to Her Majesty's Government that it would be better to proceed in due course to an election that would be internationally accepted and supervised by the United Nations.

Mr. Maurice Macmillan: If the Prime Minister—provided that he is in a position to accept such reports—receives reports from the international observers who are going to the Rhodesian elections


that those elections are free and fair, will he take steps—provided that he is in a position to take any steps at all—to inform his Back Benchers and his Government that that ought to be a reasonable criterion for saying that the elections have been properly conducted?

The Prime Minister: Any question that contains so many"ifs"is bound to be hypothetical, and it is not my responsibility to answer such questions. But clearly, the answer that I have just given to my hon. Friend the Member for Lunch-field and Tamworth (Mr. Grocott) holds good for this question also.

PRIME MINISTER (ENGAGEMENTS)

Mr. Adley: asked the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for 23 March.

The Prime Minister: This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall be holding further meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. I shall also be making a ministerial broadcast. This evening I hope to attend a reception for winners of The Queen's Award for Export and Technology in 1978. It is not the custom for the Prime Minister to give details of his engagements in advance.

Mr. Adley: Does the Prime Minister recall that last Tuesday he sneered at my my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition when she described the current rate of inflation as 13·3 per cent.? That was a statistic provided by the Treasury, and he described it as having been given in response to a question designed to produce a certain answer. As that statistic was based on the same criteria as the Chancellor of the Exchequer used to produce his statistic of 8·4 per cent. inflation at the last general election, can the Prime Minister tell us whether his party fought the last general election on a false prospectus? Is he proud that after five years his Government have raised inflation from 8·4 per cent. to 13·3 per cent.?

The Prime Minister: I must say that if the hon. Gentleman has to go back to that he is getting in pretty poor shape for asking questions. As to the basis on which the election was fought, I shall

recount it to the House, namely, that the overcoming of inflation was the first priority, together with ensuring that our balance of payments was put in order. Both those aims have been achieved.

Mr. Stallard: Will my right hon. Friend take time off from his engagements, either today or tomorrow, to intervene in the rapidly deteriorating situation in Northern Ireland resulting from the Bennett report and allied issues, further highlighted today by the action of another distinguished member of the medical profession, Dr. Denis Elliott? Is my right hon. Friend aware that charges and countercharges between the Northern Ireland Office and representatives of the minority community have antagonised many members of the minority community in Northern Ireland and many impartial observers in this country, and that this is bringing into question the Government's whole approach to the problems of the Six Counties in the North-East of Ireland?

The Prime Minister: I believe that the Government have shown by their immediate acceptance of the Bennett report that they stand firm by the principle that there should be no possibility that any prisoner taken into custody should suffer injury as a result of that being done. Every case that is brought to our attention where that happens will certainly be dealt with most rigorously, for there can be no worse condemnation of the Government than that we should allow such matters to pass unchallenged and uncorrected. I give my hon. Friend that firm assurance.

Mr. Paul Dean: Will the Prime Minister acknowledge that the political manoeuvres in which he is engaged today degrade the high office which he temporarily holds and are bad for Britain? Will he now put Britain first and give the people of this country the chance to elect a Government?

The Prime Minister: I do not complain if the hon. Gentleman thinks that it is not electioneering or is putting Britain first to believe that his own party would do better, but it comes a little strange when he makes a remark suggesting that, of course, that has nothing to do with politics. It seems to me that I have reached the stage when, were I even to


say that spring is on the way, it would be regarded as electioneering of the worst order ever witnessed in this country.

Mrs. Renée Short: Will my right hon. Friend find some time today to study the transcript of the broadcast yesterday by Dr. Rhoodie in order to consider whether he should hold an inquiry into whether any British politicians on the Opposition Benches—[HON. MEMBERS:"Or the Government Benches."]—received any payment for speaking in support of South Africa's apartheid policy?

The Prime Minister: I shall certainly ask the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary to study this matter, but I would not myself propose to go into it. I am sure that if any factors come to light my right hon. Friend will suggest that we take the necessary action.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: asked the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 22 March.

The Prime Minister: This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall be holding further meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. I shall also be making a ministerial broadcast. This evening I hope to attend a reception for winners of The Queen's Award for Export and Technology in 1978.

Mr. Winterton: Will the Prime Minister say why the Government have accepted a 20 per cent. increase for lorry drivers in the public sector, and may I ask him to be honest with the House and explain, since he is so bitterly opposed to 20 per cent. pay increases in the private sector, how two inflationary wrongs can make a non-inflationary right?

The Prime Minister: I am sure that what the hon. Gentleman suggests in the last part of his question must be correct, but it does not arise out of my official engagements today.

Mr. Rooker: Will my right hon. Friend take time off today to receive the overwhelming thanks of the majority of the British people for the decision which he has announced today to set up a council for animal welfare? Secondly, when he comes to announce the membership of the council, will he pay no heed to balance but make sure that the majority of the

council are there for the purpose of animal welfare and not animal use?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. The Government received many representations on this issue, and I have told my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett) that because of the growing concern about the treatment of animals the Government have decided to set up a council for animal welfare to maintain an oversight in this matter and to advise the Government. The council will have the power to review existing legislation and recommend legislative or other action on any animal welfare matter and to propose improvements in the existing advisory machinery.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: Is it true, as is alleged in the Western Mail today—[HON. MEMBERS:"NO."]—that in their bid for survival the Government have offered Plaid Cymru a compensation scheme for slate quarrymen suffering from dust diseases? If that is true, is it not the most despicable bit of bartering possible?

The Prime Minister: On the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question, while I have every respect for the Western Mail, it is not my responsibility to comment on reports in that newspaper. As regards the whole question of the compensation for slate quarrymen, I wish that the hon. Gentleman had not put his point in that way. He will remember that the Royal Commission which examined this matter was very sympathetic about it but could not find a solution, and when I reported some months ago on the outcome of the Royal Commission I announced that the Government would try to find some way of compensating these slate quarrymen. I believe that when he reflects on his question, the hon. Gentleman will regret the insinuation which he made.

Mr. Christopher Price: asked the Prime Minister if he will list his engagements for 22 March.

The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I have just given to the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton).

Mr. Price: If my right hon. Friend finds himself today contemplating what to do in Parliament over the next seven


months during which the Government will remain in office, will he turn his mind to the Official Information Bill which is shortly to come to the House on Report and remind himself that in the Labour manifesto there was a pledge to reform the Official Secrets Act and to provide a public right of access? Will my right hon. Friend remind himself also that the Bill was not opposed by the Government on Second Reading, and will he give the House some sort of indication that all the reports that he is against it are completely wrong?

The Prime Minister: In all these matters, of course, there is collective responsibility and I accept my share of it. As regards the future of the freedom of information Bill, I hope that there will be some discussions with the sponsors of the Bill and others who are interested before it comes back to the House. It contains a number of very valuable points, but it also contains others which would not be acceptable, and perhaps we can make some progress on it in the light of the discussions which may take place.

Mr. Gwynfor Evans: Will the Prime Minister in his broadcast tonight explain to the people why he made no ministerial broadcast during the campaigns for Assemblies in Wales and Scotland? Will he explain why the Government made no effort to explain the measure to the people who are utterly bewildered by it? Will he also explain why the Labour Party in the constituencies in Wales took virtually no part in the campaign for a Welsh Assembly?

The Prime Minister: I think that the hon. Gentleman knows the difficulties about broadcasting during the campaign. As for my own part in the campaign, I say—I hope with due modesty—that I addressed the largest assembly in Wales that heard anybody speak on the subject during the course of the campaign. Unfortunately, it did not have the required effect. I hate to think what might have happened if I had spoken to an even larger audience.

DEVOLUTION

The Prime Minister (Mr. James Callaghan): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will make a statement about the further action that the Government propose to take following the results of the referendums on devolution which were held in Scotland and Wales on 1 March.
The House is aware that it is now almost 10 years since the Royal Commission on the constitution was appointed at a time when there was much public dissatisfaction with the workings of government in Scotland and Wales.
For a decade there has been intense debate about possible changes in the system of government, not only in this House, where all parties have put forward their own proposals for improvement, but also in Scotland and Wales. Parliament itself has been engaged for almost two years in considering detailed legislation, which included the proposal for advisory referendums to enable the people of Scotland and Wales to vote on whether they wished the Acts to come into force.
The results of those votes fell short of the conditions laid down by Parliament, so today the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales are laying draft orders to repeal the Acts as they are required to do by section 85(2) of the Scotland Act and section 80(2) of the Wales Act. The effect of these orders would be to repeal both Acts in their entirety. That is a fundamental decision and Parliament must have a full and early opportunity to debate and decide the issue. This is the Government's intention.
If the House decides to repeal these Acts, that will certainly not be the end of the matter. The debate will continue, especially in Scotland, where a majority of the votes cast was for the Act to come into force. Such a volume of opinion cannot sensibly be disregarded.
The Government have now fulfilled their obligation to lay the repeal orders. We intend to proceed to the next stage, namely, to ask the House to debate and decide on the orders, but we also propose that before the House makes such an important decision there should be a short intermediate stage.
As the House knows, the Government themselves are firmly committed to a policy of devolution. We shall therefore use this short interval to make formal approaches to all the other parties in the House urgently to discuss on a bilateral basis, taking into account the result of the Scottish referendum, whether a measure of agreement might not be found to provide for the better government of Scotland. We will be ready to consider carefully modifications which might now be proposed to the present Act, and ready to consider no less carefully any other proposals that might emerge. The Government's intention is that such discussions should be brought to a conclusion one way or the other by the end of April at the latest.
As for Wales, the same uncertainties are not present. There was a heavy majority vote against the Wales Act and the Government assume that Parliament will wish to repeal the Act. Nevertheless, agreement might be possible on further administrative changes which would improve the quality of government in the Principality. We shall therefore approach other parties to consider whether we can secure agreement on further devolutionary changes that would lead to a settlement in Wales within the same time limit of the end of April.
The Government's conclusion is that the situation in Scotland makes it imperative that before any irrevocable step is taken by this House there should be one further attempt by the parties to get the matter right in a way that would not disregard the majority voting in the Scottish referendum and would strengthen the unity of the United Kingdom.

Mrs. Thatcher: I put three points to the Prime Minister on his statement. First, is he aware that we believe that the best way would be for the House to proceed to debate the orders on the Scotland and Wales Acts and to decide their fate as a first step? With particular reference to Scotland, we believe that a proposal that is approved by 33 per cent. of Scottish electors, rejected by 31 per cent. and for which about 36 per cent. did not register their vote is no basis for constitutional change.
Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman has proposed bilateral talks with all the

parties. He will recall that he has turned down similar proposals many times. Does he recollect the most recent occasion, in Glasgow, in February of this year, when, referring to the proposals of my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) for an all-party conference and the extensive range of options that it should consider, he said:
 What a sham, what a shower.
It would seem, therefore, that the Prime Minister does not really believe in talks except when he finds himself in acute difficulty. Does he understand that we are entitled to question whether his prime objective today is genuinely to explore ways of making the Government of the United Kingdom and its parts more effective and closer to the people? It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that this is merely a delaying device, with a different end in view.
Thirdly, bearing in mind that even if this Parliament runs its full time there are only about three months of parliamentary sitting time left, does the right hon. Gentleman accept that it would be a cleaner and better way for the question to be considered by a new Parliament with a fresh mandate and a long lease of life ahead?

The Prime Minister: I agree with the right hon. Lady that there is a case for debating and deciding the orders as soon as possible. When the talks that I have proposed have been concluded, in the normal course of events a debate will be arranged through the usual channels. The issue has now been running for about 10 years. Whatever our views may have been before the referendums—here I come to the right hon. Lady's second question—I hope that everybody has learned some lessons as a result of them. In Scotland the result was close, but there was a majority in favour. Unless the House is not really concerned about the constitutional future in these matters, that is surely something to which we should pay attention.
I note what the right hon. Lady said in her last question, about motives. It is true that only three months' sitting time is left. I note what she says about a new Parliament and the position of the Government. However, the real concern here is not the future of the Government but the future of the United Kingdom. I can


think of nothing worse than that this House should proceed to a decision on this matter which in certain circumstances would leave a complete vacuum. It seems to me that many hon. Gentlemen are so concerned with scoring party points that they do not look at the wider issues.

Mr. Donald Stewart: May I remind the Prime Minister of the clear commitment in the Labour Party election manifesto that Labour would create elected Assemblies for Scotland and Wales—about which there were no ifs, buts, referendums, 40 per cent. clauses, or anything else? Could not the talks to which he referred easily have taken place in the three weeks since the Scottish people gave their decisive verdict on the Scottish Assembly? Is it a reality that he is not prepared to face the outcome of a vote in the House but is prepared to treat the Scottish people with contempt rather than face an early election?

The Prime Minister: I believe that it would be treating the Scottish people with contempt if an order were laid and voted on to repeal the Act without any attempt being made to see what could be done to achieve a measure of good government in Scotland. I hope that the Scottish National Party will remember that.

Mr. David Steel: Is the Prime Minister not at least correct in saying that devolution is an issue that will not go away? In our view it will not do so. Is he aware of our view that such inter-party discussions as he proposes will in any case be necessary to make progress on this issue, irrespective of whether there is an election or change of Government, and that we might as well start the process now?
Is the Prime Minister aware that during the referendum many of those who campaigned for a"No"vote did so on the basis that the Scotland Act was unacceptable and that better alternative proposals should be considered? Is this not now the chance for them to be produced?

The Prime Minister: The most notable example of what the right hon. Gentleman said was provided by Lord Home, who said that he had debated whether to vote for the Act in the referendum but came to the conclusion that even though the Act was not right it should be taken back and modified. I believe that that is the view of a great many Conservatives

—certainly of those who are not merely concerned with whether they can save their skins in the House.

Mr. Dalyell: May I support the Prime Minister in suggesting that the issue is the future of the United Kingdom? Does he accept that, rightly or wrongly, many people believed, on the issue of majorities, that an absent vote was a"No"vote? That must be taken into consideration.

The Prime Minister: I know that. I am grateful for what my hon. Friend says. I know that there is that strong argument. With respect, I should prefer not to enter into it. It seems to me that all of us should take note that, whatever were the circumstances, the majority of those who voted did so in favour of setting up an Assembly. It would be totally wrong—and might create intense dissatisfaction—if the House proceeded in an afternoon's debate to wipe out the result of two years' legislation without making an attempt to see whether we could do something to get good government in Scotland.

Mr. Alexander Fletcher: Why does the Prime Minister think that any Member of Parliament or anyone else should accept his advice—or is it a device—on devolution? Has not he represented a Cardiff constituency for 34 years? Does not his chief collaborator, the Lord President, also represent a Welsh constituency? Did not they both get it terribly wrong on their home ground? Is it not time that the Prime Minister stopped giving advice and started taking some, by having a free vote on this subject in the House next week and thereafter going to the country for an early election?

The Prime Minister: I never cease to take advice. I am being proffered it from all quarters. Indeed, I now suggest that I should listen to the hon. Gentleman and any others who have advice to offer on how to carry this matter forward. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will help me on that matter.

Mr. Sillars: Is the Prime Minister aware of the growing feeling of sourness and bitterness among the"Yes"voters in Scotland, who see that"first past the post"is acceptable for election to the House, for decisions in the House, and to take us into the Common Market?


That was a constitutional change involving a traer of sovereignty of far greater magnitude than devolution. Is the Prime Minister aware that in the coming election there is no party in Scotland that will get 33 per cent. of the electorate's votes?
May I ask the Prime Minister to confirm two facts? Given the arithmetic, the size of the Parliamentary Labour Party and the known support of the other factions in the House for voting for the repeal order, has he a majority on paper of 35 per cent. to secure the Scotland Act?
Secondly, is not the Prime Minister's strong position on paper undermined because he and the Cabinet are in an extremely difficult position, as some Labour Members of Parliament would rather see a Thatcher Government in Downing Street than the Scots sitting in an Assembly in Edinburgh?

The Prime Minister: What my hon. Friend said at the beginning of his question is true. All our decisions are taken on the basis of a majority vote. Winston Churchill once said"One is enough." The Cabinet and the Government must take note that Parliament, after long debates, inserted the 40 per cent. provision into the Act. That is why it would not be right for us to plunge ahead without further discussions on this matter.
As to the future of the country, my hon. Friend should not worry himself with nightmares about a Conservative Government. That will not happen.

Mr. George Gardiner: Whether or not the Prime Minister is treating the Scottish people with contempt, does he recognise that many people on both sides of the House believe that he is treating the House with contempt? The House of Commons established the rules by which these referendums should be conducted. It has the right to expect him to play by those rules.

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman is correct. That is why we laid the orders today. We shall proceed to a debate and Division on this matter, in the normal course of events, when the talks, which I have said must finish by the end of April, have been concluded.

Mr. George Cunningham: Does the Prime Minister agree that one fact that every Member of Parliament must bear in mind, besides those that he mentioned, is that more than two-thirds of the people of Scotland did not support the proposal that was before them? Is he aware that what people throughout the country, north and south of the border, want is more local decision-taking? Two-thirds of the people in Scotland did not support the proposal, as they believed that this must be done on an all-British basis and not on a partial basis.

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend states the position correctly. Whether or not the Act was popular and a majority of people voted for it, even if the House of Commons took a swift decision to wipe it off the statute book there would be continuing pressure for more local decision-taking in Scotland, as my hon. Friend said. This is an issue to which the House should address itself seriously, and it is on that basis that we shall be intending to enter into talks.

Mr. Graham Page: Does the Prime Minister think that the Government are really carrying out their obligation under the Scotland Act when they merely lay these orders without laying also a motion to approve them? Is this not using the procedure of this House to cheat the House out of an early debate?

The Prime Minister: The answer to the first part of the question is"Yes"and to the second part"No ".

Mr. William Ross: Is the Prime Minister aware that I wish him well, but I"hae ma doots "? For a number of years we have waited publicly for a clear declaration from the official Opposition as to their policy on devolution. It would be helpful to Scotland and, indeed, to the United Kingdom if the official Opposition could come clean with the people and with this House as to where they stand. Will the Prime Minister seek to have these discussions in public?
Will the Prime Minister assure us that he will go beyond the Leader of the Opposition and seek the views of the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) and of another former Conservative Prime Minister, Lord Home of the Hirsel, who clearly, in election after


election, gave to the people of Scotland the promise of an elected Assembly?

The Prime Minister: Yes, the Conservative Party has in the past said that, although more recently, in December, it published a pamphlet in which four viable options were offered. That was before the referendum, and they did not seem to us at that time to be appropriate. Nevertheless, if the Conservative Party wishes to advance those options during the course of discussions, they ought to be considered, as there was such a narrow majority on this matter. We cannot wish away the fact that a majority of people have voted in favour of the Assembly and there is therefore a responsibility on all of us.
I think that it would be better to begin with bilateral talks. They can be broadened out in any other way, provided that we get them finished within a reasonable period. That seems to me to be essential. I have already indicated what I mean by that.

Mr. Whitelaw: As the Prime Minister referred to my noble Friend the Lord Home, and as he was also referred to by the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), may I ask the Prime Minister whether he noticed the statement made by Lord Home yesterday, in which he said that
 In terms of practical politics nothing can happen before a general election "?

The Prime Minister: That, no doubt, is Lord Home's view, but that depends on the willingness of the parties to have discussions. I believe that there is such a willingness, and certainly the effort ought to be made.

Mr. Abse: Does the Prime Minister agree that even in Wales, where only a very small number of people supported the Assembly, it is highly desirable that that small minority should not be totally disregarded? Will he further agree that it is important, in the interests of the unity of the Principality, as well as the unity of the United Kingdom, that wherever minorities have expressed their view, be they in Scotland or in Wales, by means of talks we should try to see whether we can have something far short of Assemblies but something that will bring about decentralisation in a manner that will find a general consensus?

The Prime Minister: I hope that the House will take note of what my hon. Friend has said. He is a representative of the Principality who fought very hard against putting the Wales Act on the statute book. I think it is clear to all of us that for Wales, with its separate language and its different culture, we should not take hasty decisions unless, as my hon. Friend says, we are able to find ways of strengthening the power of local decision-making and of strengthening the sense of identity of the minority in Wales.

Mr. Sproat: In the light of what the Prime Minister has repeatedly said about the so-called majority in Scotland, what does he now say to those voters in Scotland who believed the persistent statements by members of his own Government, and the statement in the one official Labour Party political broadcast, that an abstention meant a"No"vote? Will not those voters who acted accordingly feel bitterly cheated if he now disregards their abstentions, which, in the majority of cases, were clearly votes against the Assembly?

The Prime Minister: I know the view that is expressed about this. I did not enter into that, and I do not wish to do so now. We can go only on the basis of the votes that were cast. Anyone is entitled to put his own interpretation on what would have happened if votes that were not cast had been cast. I am not holding an inquest on the past; I am trying to see whether there is any way—considering that of the number of votes cast there was a majority in favour of the Assembly—of finding a path forward that would satisfy the majority.

Mr. Dewar: Does my right hon. Friend accept that many people in Scotland who have supported devolution for a long time—indeed, the vast majority of supporters of the Labour Party in Scotland—will support his idea of talks at this stage, as the alternative is almost certainly the repeal of the Act and putting back the cause of devolution for many years?
Does my right hon. Friend further accept that if small groups in this House—groups who have temporarily been given a place of importance by the even balance of the House—block those talks, they


will be seen by many people in Scotland as acting against the best interests of devolution, and as probably going for something very different indeed from the reform of the government of the United Kingdom that everyone in Scotland wants?

The Prime Minister: I have put before the House the Government's proposal. Every hon. Member must now reach his own conclusion on what he wishes to do about that, and I have no desire to influence anybody beyond what I have said.

Mr. Reid: By refusing today to give a clear guarantee that the vote on the Scotland Act will be on a three-line Whip, does not the Prime Minister confirm what the House already knows—that there is a Scots majority for the Assembly, an English majority against the Assembly, and enough Members in his own party who would rather see the Leader of the Opposition in Downing Street than honour the clear manifesto commitment to the Scots people?
If it is clear to the Prime Minister by tonight that there are no takers for his bilateral talks, will he have the vote next week, anyway?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman seems to be repeating points that were made earlier. Whether it is a three-line Whip or a four-line Whip is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council and not for me. He is the one who decides that. The hon. Gentleman should not be pessimistic. I believe that from these talks we can help to save something for the people of Scotland, and I hope that he will help us to do so.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I propose to call three more hon. Members from each side.

Mr. William Hamilton: Does the Prime Minister agree that whether or not the inter-party discussions take place there will be a very expensive empty building in Edinburgh? Will the Government therefore consider sending the 71 Scottish Members of the Scottish Grand Committee, with the Scottish Estimates, to debate all matters relating to Scotland, including legislation, in that chamber?

Will he, in addition, pioneer the devolution process by encouraging that Assembly to set up powerful Select Committees to investigate specific Scottish matters, in line with the recommendations of the recent report of the Procedure Committee?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend's proposal is one that might well come from one or other of the parties with whom we intend to have discussions. The Government would approach that matter with an open mind, to see whether it met with assent.

Mr. Fairbairn: In view of the charlatan-like and twisted statement made by the Prime Minister this afternoon, and the sycophantic statement made by the right hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. Steel), would it not be better, instead of declining, as the Prime Minister did earlier, to send observers to Rhodesia, to ask some members of the Patriotic Front to come here and see whether we have free and fair elections?

Mr. Anderson: If, in the bilateral talks, my right hon. Friend will not be in the position of reacting to proposals from other parties, surely he must have some idea of the various options available. Can he now tell the House what will be on the agenda at those meetings, what the alternatives are that the Government have in mind, and whether those alternatives include reform of this House for Select Committees on Welsh and Scottish affairs?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is, of course, correct. Naturally we have given consideration to what might be put forward. When we have these inter-party talks we will certainly be ready to discuss a number of issues that will concern both Wales and Scotland, and we have prepared such a small list.

Mr. Gow: Is the Prime Minister aware that the successive misjudgments that have been made by the Government in regard to their devolution policy, including their misjudgment of the response of the people of Wales and Scotland, mean that he has no authority left to call such talks? Will the Prime Minister tell the House what his time scale will be if the only person with whom he


finds himself in conversation is the temporary Leader of the Liberal Party?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman seems to be putting an odd complexion on the result in Scotland, where a majority voted in favour of the Act. No amount of argument can wish that away. If more than 1¼ million people voted in favour of the Act, it would seem to show—even Eastbourne might take this into account—that in Scotland there is a very real desire for more local devolution of one sort or another, even among many of those who voted against the Act as it stood. It is to that fact that we must now direct our attention.

Mr. Kinnock: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his short intermediate stage can be justified, especially if it means that impending death will concentrate the minds of nationalists in the House? Is he aware that on 1 March the people of Scotland and Wales shattered nationalism and also firmly rejected selective and isolating devolution within the United Kingdom? Will he make absolutely sure that his period of reflection, however necessary, is not mistaken for prevarication?

The Prime Minister: The fact that we are ready to enter into talks with a time limit—and a very short time limit—in order to see what can be done about this matter is in itself sufficient indication of our good faith.

Mr. Alan Clark: Instead of indulging in these various hypocrisies and shadow boxings with the minority parties, why does not the Prime Minister simply lay before Parliament the Septennial Act? In view of the proccupation of the minority parties with losing their seats, that would be probably the most effective way of ensuring the right hon. Gentleman's personal ambition—namely, to remain in office for another two years.

The Prime Minister: Like so many others, the hon. Gentleman seems so concerned about these matters that he is unable to look at the wider issues that concern the future of the United Kingdom.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will remember that when the Prime Minister made his statement he said that the matter affected the

United Kingdom. I appreciate your difficulty, but in view of the fact that all those hon. Members whom you have called have been Scots or Welsh, or represent Scottish or Welsh constituencies, and also the fact that the Prime Minister said that this matter affects the United Kingdom, should not at least some hon. Members who also have an interest in the United Kingdom have been called? This matter concerns regional questions, including London, so surely we are entitled to join in this discussion.

Mr. Speaker: I understand the hon. Gentleman's frustration at not being called, but his facts are not strictly correct. I did call a London Member.

Mr. Lewis: But he was Scottish.

Mr. Speaker: I do not ask an hon. Member's nationality; I am guided by constituency.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I believe that my hon. Friend has a point. A number of hon. Members represent English constituencies, and the Prime Minister has always said that this is a matter of importance to them as well as to anyone else. My protest is a mild one, but it is, nevertheless, a protest.

Mr. Cormack: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Since when has Eastbourne been in Scotland?

Mr. Speaker: Order. We were not debating the matter today. We were asking questions. I allowed a long time for questions, but there will now be a serious statement by the Foreign Secretary.

Mr. Lewis: On another point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I raise with you, in the hearing of the Prime Minister, something that I believe will be appreciated by the House? When statements are made—I know that it has gone on for many years, quite rightly—the Leaders of the Oppositions receive copies of the statements beforehand. Are there any objections to every right hon. and hon. Member having copies of these statements beforehand, in the same way as they receive budgetary and financial statements? I ask the Prime Minister whether he will consider that seriously.
My point is that Back Benchers cannot remember a long statement. As a chosen


few Opposition Members refer to such statements, what possible objection can there be, when the Prime Minister or any Minister has a statement to make and the statement is available from the Vote Office, to hon. Members going to the Vote Office to get a copy of that statement so that they may be apprised of the details? Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, you could have a word with the Officials of the House to see whether that can be done.

Mr. Speaker: I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman. I am sure that the point of view he has expressed will be considered.

BRITISH AMBASSADOR, THE HAGUE

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Dr. David Owen): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement.
Hon. Members will have been deeply shocked to hear this morning of the death of our Ambassador to the Netherlands, Sir Richard Sykes, and a member of his domestic staff, Mr. Karel Straub, a Dutch citizen. Sir Richard Sykes was shot while leaving his residence shortly after nine o'clock this morning and four bullets were fired at the car at short range. According to an eye witness, the shots were fired by two men who have not yet been traced and no organisation has yet claimed responsibility for the incident. We are in close contact with the Dutch Government and with other European Governments.
I know the entire House will be appalled by this premeditated act of violence and will join with me in expressing our sincere condolences to Lady Sykes and her family and to the family of Mr. Straub.
Sir Richard was an outstanding representative and his death is a great loss to this country, of which he was a distinguished servant, to the Diplomatic Service, of which he was a greatly liked and respected member, and, above all, to his wife and family, to whom we will all wish to extend our deepest sympathy.

Mr. Pym: The whole House is profoundly shocked by this brutal and pre-meditated

murder. The Opposition send their heartfelt sympathy to Sir Richard Sykes' widow and family, and to the family of the Dutch member of staff.
Sir Richard was one more highly distinguished representative of our country, and a completely innocent citizen, whose life has been taken. It is a horrifying event—so much so that it is difficult to grasp and comprehend. Not only are we deeply concerned for his family, but we are also anxious about the safety of our ambassadors and representatives. Only recently the United States ambassador in Afghanistan was murdered.
May I ask the Foreign Secretary whether he will undertake a review of the security arrangements, because it would seem that we are in a new situation now in which the existing level of protection may no longer be appropriate?
May I add a message of sympathy also for our Diplomatic Service, whose members play such a vital role for our country all round the world? While sending our condolences to, and thinking about, this grievous tragedy for Sir Richard Svkes family, we think also of the service of which he was such a respected member.

Dr. Owen: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his remarks about Sir Richard Sykes and his family, as well as his remarks about the Diplomatic Service. There is very little doubt that in many different parts of the world it takes risks on our behalf, and they are not always recognised. The security arrangements are under constant review, and must change with the changing situation in many different countries. Arrangements are made either with the host Government or, in exceptional cases, by Her Majesty's Government to protect our ambassadors in posts overseas. I shall certainly look at them, but I can assure the House and the right hon. Gentleman that they are constantly looked at and that the utmost vigilance is observed.
When all is said and done, and as anyone who has lived under any form of protection knows, if people are to conduct themselves in public life openly and in a civilised manner, there will always be some risk. What we must do is to root out the terrorism that makes such occurrences possible.

Mr. David Steel: On behalf of my colleagues, may I join in the expressions of


sympathy to the families of Sir Richard and his Dutch member of staff? Sir Richard was known to many of us in this House, in both his present and previous postings. I join with the official Opposition spokesman in supporting the Government in any further steps that they may think it necessary to take to improve the security of our representatives overseas.

Dr. Owen: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Roper: Does my right hon. Friend accept that a number of hon. Members on both sides of the House knew Sir Richard Sykes personally, both in his capacity as a member of the Western European Union Council and, more recently, at The Hague? We know what he did to promote co-operation between parliamentarians in European countries and, therefore, feel very deeply about his tragic and deplorable death. We should like to associate ourselves with the condolences that my right hon. Friend has sent to Lady Sykes.

Dr. Owen: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. One of the striking things about Sir Richard Sykes was the great many friends he had in all walks of life, in this House and elsewhere, who will greatly miss him.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: I suggest to the House that we might not wish to continue with a lot of questions on this matter, but I shall call the hon. Member in whose constituency the diplomat resided.

Mr. Michael Hamilton: The Foreign Secretary may be aware that the Ambassador was not merely a constituent but, after more than 30 years in the Foreign Service, was beginning to look forward to his retirement. Will the right hon. Gentleman personally ensure that treatment of the Ambassador's family by his Department, and more particularly by the Treasury, reflects the sympathy that has been expressed on both sides of the House this afternoon?

Dr. Owen: Yes.

Mr. Speaker: I apologise to those hon. Members who I know had personal links and wanted to put questions on this matter. I think that it is in the best interests of the House for us to move on.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mrs. Thatcher: May I ask the Lord President to state the business for next week?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 26 MARCH and TUESDAY 27 MARCH—Debate on a motion on the statement on the Defence Estimates, Cmnd. 7474.
At the end of the debate on Monday: motion on EEC documents R/2712/78, R/2311/78 and R/2163/78 on the Community's energy policy.
Remaining stages of the Forestry Bill [Lords].
Motions on the Redundant Mine-workers Concessionary Coal Order and on the Mineworkers' Pensions Scheme Order.
At the end of the debate on Tuesday: remaining stages of the Public Health Laboratory Service Bill [Lords].
WEDNESDAY 28 MARCH—Second Reading of the Legal Aid Bill [Lords].
Remaining stages of the Credit Unions Bill.
At Seven o'clock the Chairman of Ways and Means has named opposed private business for consideration.
THURSDAY 29 MARCH—Remaining stages of the Independent Broadcasting Authority Bill.
Debate on the White Paper on broadcasting, Cmnd. 7294.
Motion on the British Broadcasting Corporation Supplemental Licence Agreement and Royal Charter.
FRIDAY 30 MARCH—Private Members' motions.
MONDAY 2 APRIL—Debate on CAP price proposals for 1979–80, document 4648/79 and addendas 1, 2 and 3, and on EEC documents R/2369/78 and R/2162/78.

Mrs. Thatcher: Bearing in mind that our proposals for Scotland have already been published for some time, and already turned down by the Government, and that other parties might have similar


views which they could express to the Government briefly, will the Lord President bear in mind that for Wednesday or Thursday's business he could substitute a debate on the orders to which the Prime Minister so recently referred?

Mr. Foot: I certainly bear everything that the right hon. Lady says in mind, but, on reflection, I believe that she would also agree that the best way to proceed is that suggested by the Prime Minister this afternoon.

Mr. Heffer: Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on the very special relationship between political parties and the media with regard to by-elections and elections? My right hon. Friend may be aware that the Liberal candidate in the present by-election in Liverpool, Edge Hill has refused to appear on Granada Television, which precludes the other candidates. On that basis, will my right hon. Friend see whether time could be found for a debate? Possibly an approach may be made to the IBA in this regard.

Mr. Foot: If the statements made by my hon. Friend are true, as I suspect them to be, a very serious situation exists in regard to that by-election. It seems a very illiberal attitude for anyone to adopt, but if the Leader of the Liberal Party can assure us that there is no such difficulty, or at any rate that he has managed to get the Liberal candidate to change his mind, I shall be gratified to hear it right away.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Steel.

Mr. David Steel: I do not think, Mr. Speaker, that this is really in order under business questions—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I called the right hon. Gentleman to ask a question.

Mr. Steel: My difficulty is that I am trying desperately to think how I can ask a question. Is the Leader of the House aware that what he has just been told is quite untrue, and that the Liberal candidate in the by-election will be participating in television programmes? However, he certainly took exception to the format of one programme, and I understand that negotiations are still going on. However, the other programmes are going ahead

and all the candidates will be participating.

Mr. Foot: Part of what my hon. Friend said is true. I hope the position will be cleared up. I hope that no restriction at all will be imposed in that by-election. I am glad to have the right hon. Gentleman's assent to this proposition, because I hope that we are all in favour of open government in Edge Hill.

Mr. Grieve: Has the attention of the Leader of the House been drawn to early-day motion No. 324, standing in my name and that of 87 of my right hon. and hon. Friends?
[That this House regrets that the Inland Revenue should appear to be departing from its traditional impartiality.]
Will he give the House an early opportunity to debate this motion? There is widespread concern throughout the length and breadth of the country about the recent departures by the Inland Revenue from what was believed to be its policy of impartiality between taxpayers.

Mr. Foot: I cannot accept reflections on the way in which the Inland Revenue does it business on the basis of the hon. and learned Gentleman's allegations or those in the motion. I do not see the necessity or desirability of such a debate, but I shall have a look at the matter, although at present I have nothing to add to what I said on this subject a week ago.

Mr. Spearing: Does the Lord President recall that the business of EEC energy, which should have taken place last Tuesday, had been expected to last for about three and a half hours? Since it has now been transferred to Monday next after 10 o'clock, will he give consideration to extending that debate to its original proposed length?

Mr. Foot: I am sorry, but I cannot agree with my hon. Friend's suggestion. We had to transfer the business for reasons that I think were for the convenience of the House as a whole. In view of the transfer, it will unfortunately mean that the length of time available for the debate will not be as long as we had previously hoped and arranged. I understand my hon. Friend's concern, but


some other business will also be considered on that day and we must also take that into account.

Sir Bernard Braine: Can the Leader of the House say whether the promised statement by the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs about his visit to the Pacific, which took place more than three weeks ago, will be made next week? Is he aware that the longer this statement is delayed the more the impression will be given that the Government have something to hide about the Banaban question? Incidentally, when shall we have a Bill in the House?

Mr. Foot: My hon. Friend's report is being considered and the Government's views will be made known in due course. I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman says on the other aspect of the matter. The Bill will be introduced at a fairly early stage, when the House will have the chance to debate it.

Miss Boothroyd: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the desire of many hon. Members to focus attention on the aims of the international year of the child and the special welfare and health programmes that are needed, particularly to meet the needs of children in the developing world and the demographic trends related to these programmes? Will he consider my request, made many weeks ago, to find time for a debate on this wide-ranging issue?

Mr. Foot: My hon. Friend raises a perfectly eligible subject for debate. I would say to her and other hon. Members of the House that this is a question that can be raised in private Members' time. That is not to suggest anything derogatory to the importance of the subject. That is why private Members' time is provided by this House on a more ample basis, believe, than is the case in any other legislature in the world.

Sir David Renton: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House what he intends to do next week about the constructive proposals in the report of the Procedure Committee, published on Tuesday, for enabling the House to reach decisions on the main isssues that arise on its report?

Mr. Foot: I have read the report. I think that the further report that the Committee

has presented to us is most helpful in suggesting how we might proceed. I do not accept that every proposal made is the way that we would wish to proceed, but the Committee's approach has certainly assisted us in the discussions that are taking place between ourselves and others in the House on ways to discuss the matter when we come back to it.

Mr. Watt: When shall we have an opportunity to debate the Expenditure Committee's report on the fishing industry? Is the Leader of the House aware that the present state of uncertainty cannot continue, as many boatbuilders in my constituency are threatened with redundancy?

Mr. Foot: I acknowledge the importance of the subject. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the whole question of the future of the fishing industry has been constantly referred to and discussed in the House. I am sure that we shall need to have further discussions in due course. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be here to assist us in those discussions.

Dr. Bray: Will my right hon. Friend say when the Government will announce their proposals to deal with the breach of oil sanctions in Rhodesia? Will he say whether the Government propose to make their proposals known before the election in Rhodesia?

Mr. Foot: I am sorry to have to tell my hon. Friend that I have nothing further to add this week to what I said last week in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes), who raised the question. I had hoped to be in a position to make a further statement this week. I hope, in any case, to be able to do so next week.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I appreciate that the arrangements for next week's business may be rather provisional, but life must go on. Does not the Lord President think that Thursday's business looks overcrowded? Is it wise to attempt to have a debate on the Independent Broadcasting Bill and on the White Paper on broadcasting on the same day? Would it not be better to take the debate on the White Paper on broadcasting first, or, better still, to have these debates on different days?

Mr. Foot: I agree with the hon. Gentleman's suggestion that we are dealing


with a leisurely prospect ahead of us. None the less, I believe there is an obvious association in all these topics. It may be found, on reflection, that the order that we have proposed for discussion also has its advantages.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall call those hon. Members who have already been standing.

Mr. Ioan Evans: In view of the serious allegations made in the special"Tonight"programme about the activities of the South African Government in financing politicians, newspapers and front organisations in various countries, can we expect a Government statement next week, or is an investigation taking place?

Mr. Foot: I cannot promise a Government statement, but I will look into the subject in the light of my hon. Friend's representations.

Mr. Cormack: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the opinion of most people in this country his Government's programme is threadbare and its honour and credibility are destroyed? Does he accept that the Scottish National Party, in the motion that it has recently tabled, appears to have a better idea of the priorities of the situation?

Mr. Foot: We are all waiting to see whether the hon. Gentleman and some of his hon. Friends have the courage of the Scottish nationalist convictions. It will be interesting to see. The hon. Gentleman should look at the programme that is ahead of us for a considerable period before he makes such suggestions.
We have the important discussions that I have announced on broadcasting, on many interesting subjects, and, on Monday week, on the common agricultural policy. Shortly afterwards, a major housing Bill will be presented to Parliament and, as the House knows, the Budget will be presented on 3 April. I am sure that the Opposition will be eager to make a contribution. There is plenty of good business to be done in the weeks and months ahead.

Mr. Christopher Price: Will my right hon. Friend be more specific than the Prime Minister this afternoon about the

Government's intentions in relation to the Official Information Bill, which comes up for its Report stage on 6 April? The Prime Minister mentioned having discussions. Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that those discussions, if they are to take place, can be initiated quickly? It is a complicated matter when one is dealing with a Back Bench Bill with sponsors from many parties. The sooner that we get on, the better.

Mr. Foot: I shall certainly take into account all that my hon. Friend says.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that yet another week has gone by and he has failed to redeem his promise to the House to give a proper opportunity to discuss EEC legislation? He cannot prevaricate by thanking the Select Committee on Procedure for yet another report and using that as a get-out. It has gone on for far too long. Will he please tell the House that he will give it a chance next week to know what he intends to do to redeem his promise?

Mr. Foot: There is no question of anything that can even distantly be described as prevarication. I made no promise last week to make a statement on this subject this week. I have referred to this matter—it is important—and the House will wish to discuss it at some future date. I have not made a commitment about the time at which it should take place. There are different views among different hon. Members. The Committee on Procedure, to which the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) referred, has proposed to the Government a different order of priorities for discussion. I do not say that there is anything final about that, but we must take it into account.

Mr. Cryer: We have seen earlier this afternoon an example of the concern of the House for loss of human life. Does my right hon. Friend accept that between 800 and 1,000 lives are lost through industrial injuries every year in Britain's factories? More days are lost through industrial injuries than through strike action. We have not had a debate in the House on any annual report of the factory inspectors or the Health and Safety Commission. Some time ago my right hon. Friend indicated that this


would be possible. Can he now give a firmer indication that this matter should be debated? The Health and Safety Commission is accountable to this House. My guess is that if there were another Flix-borough, or some other major disaster, we would have a debate pretty soon. Why cannot we keep abreast of matters by having a debate?

Mr. Foot: I acknowledge the claim of my hon. Friend, and others with a special interest in this subject, for a debate in the House. He will acknowledge that this Government gave high priority to the question. That is why we put through the Act of Parliament that set up the Health and Safety Executive. Since then, we have carried through a whole series of measures seeking to ensure that the Act is effective. I am not denying that there is a claim to have a debate in the House to see how we are proceeding.

Mr. Bowden: Has the Leader of the House seen early-day motion No. 177, in my name, on the death grant?
[That this House of the view that steps should be taken as soon as possible to restore the death grant to its original 1949 value, in real terms, which would require an increase of £124·81, Official Report, 15 January, column 630, and to abolish the age restriction and end the discrimination against very elderly people who are at present unable to get any form of death grant as urged by the Parliamentary All Party Group for Pensioners and the National Federation of Old Age Pensions Associations, the British Pensioners and Trade Unions Action Committee, Age Concern (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), Help the Aged, the Scottish Old Age Pensions Association and others.]
It is an all-party motion, with 189 signatures. Can the right hon. Gentleman find time for a debate? If not, will he undertake to have a quiet word with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is finalising his Budget, and remind him how important is an increase in the death grant?

Mr. Foot: There is a widespread feeling in the House and throughout the country on this matter. At the last Labour Party conference—I do not think that the hon. Gentleman was present—a motion on the subject was passed. I am sure

that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be weighing all these questions.

Mr. Eyre: Has the attention of the Leader of the House been drawn to early-day motion No. 336, which refers to the report of the Town and Country Planning Association?
[That this House expresses concern at the report of the Town and Country Planning Association to the effect that the Government's declared policies to revitalise the run-down areas of cities are failing on the principal grounds that the Government plans: (a) have too little to do with local people, (b) have produced a large bureaucracy, (c) are wasting public money, and (d) do not involve private firms enough; and in view of the greatly increased unemployment and deteriorating conditions in the major towns and cities, especially in Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Leeds and parts of London, calls upon the Government to review urgently and amend their policies in the light of this report.]
This sets out the reasons why the Government's policies, aimed at revitalising the run-down areas of cities, are failing. Does the Leader of the House recognise the seriousness of these problems? Will he arrange for them to be debated at an early date?

Mr. Foot: I have read the hon. Gentleman's motion and examined the terms of it. If he and his hon. Friends look afresh at the terms of the motion, they may reach a different conclusion. They should re-read the report, because their précis is a travesty of what is in the report. It makes a more positive contribution than the Opposition wish to recognise. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Frieinds will re-read the report and reconsider whether they wish to keep the motion on the Order Paper.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: In view of the number of requests for debate that the Leader of the House has had from the minority parties such as the Liberal and Scottish National Parties, can he assure us that he and the Government are not simply prolonging this Parliament in order to fit in those debates in the next few weeks?

Mr. Foot: This Parliament is going forward to deal with important questions.


The business that I have announced today is the final, complete and conclusive answer to the hon. Gentleman's question.

Mr. Younger: Is the Leader of the House aware of the extremely serious situation in Scotland, where a wide range of public services are at a halt because of strike action against the Government's handling of their pay policy by ambulance men, hospital workers, teachers and civil servants? Why is there no time to debate this matter next week? If there is no time, will the Leader of the House set up the Scottish Grand Committee so that we can have a full debate on this important matter and public services in Scotland can return to normal?

Mr. Foot: I do not deny the seriousness of the situation. However, I doubt whether all hon. Members agree that the Scottish Grand Committee is the place where these matters should be discussed. Negotiations are still taking place. We should await their outcome before considering whether to discuss the matter in the House.

Mr. Fitt: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order, The hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) was not in the House when I said that I would call those hon. Members who had already been standing, but as a measure of good will, and not as a precedent, I call him.

Mr. Fitt: In view of the controversy that has surrounded the publication, analysis and interpretation of the Bennett report, and since another prominent member of the medical profession in Northern Ireland resigned last night because of the controversy, will the Leader of the House arrange as soon as possible for a full debate on the Bennett report on the Floor of the House, so that all the difficulties can be debated and dispensed with?
Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland takes one view among the many that are taken about the report? Will he therefore arrange for an early debate to enable all opinions to be expressed on the Floor of the House?

Mr. Foot: I cannot promise a debate next week, but I can assure my hon. Friend and others that I understand their strength of feeling and how much they wish to have the matter debated further in the House. We had some exchanges a few days ago. I shall examine the request, but I cannot make a commitment.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.

Ordered,

That the Fishing Boats (Faroe Islands) Designation Order 1979 (S. I., 1979, No. 256) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.—[Mr. Foot.]

ROYAL ASSENT

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified Her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

1. Public Lending Right Act 1979
2. Electricity (Scotland) Act 1979
3. Wages Councils Act 1979
4. Agricultural Statistics Act 1979
5. Capital Gains Tax Act 1979
6. House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1979
7. Criminal Evidence Act 1979
8. Vaccine Damage Payments Act 1979
9. Social Security Act 1979
10. Administration of Justice (Emergency Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1979
11. Consolidated Fund Act 1979

ROAD TRAFFIC (SEAT BELTS) BILL

Question again proposed, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

6.34 p.m.

Mr. Toby Jessel: May I add a word of welcome to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Clitheroe (Mr. Waddington), who is highly valued here? His return to the House of Commons is a cause of much rejoicing among his many friends. I hope that he will contribute in the future but in a way with which I am able to agree. That is not the case this evening.
Last Monday there was, quite rightly, a statement made in the House about a mining accident in Lancashire, in which five miners died. Today, quite rightly, there was a statement about two people who were murdered in Holland, one of them being highly distinguished. Every week 120 people are killed on our roads, which means 6,000 deaths on our roads every year. The figure of 6,000 is of the same order as the total of all the people killed in Northern Ireland in the crisis over the past 10 years. However, there never is a statement about the 6,000 people killed every year on our roads.
As the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) implied, the effects upon the families of people killed in road accidents may be just as shattering as those upon the families of dead miners. We all sympathise with them. When it becomes law, the Bill will prevent about 1,000 deaths out of the 6,000 every year. I say"when"purposely, as I believe that it is only a matter of time before this Bill, or something very like it, becomes law. It will prevent about 10,000 or 11,000 serious injuries and free a large number of hospital beds for orthopaedic patients who need beds but who must wait. It will free a large amount of the time and skill of doctors, nurses and psysiotherapists.
The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) cast doubt on the predictions by referring to the drink-drive law and saying that the predictions were not in accord with it. I was surprised that a former professor of Greek philosophy should fall into the logical trap of arguing from analogy.
I should like to quote from a letter dated 10 November 1978 from Lord Ashby to The Times, before that newspaper went out of circulation. Part of it reads:
 A report on road accidents in Great Britain, published by the Department of the Environment in 1976, records the casualties to front seat drivers in automobiles in Britain for the year 1974. There were 19,211 casualties among persons wearing seat belts, of which 3,952 (206 per cent.) were fatal or serious; and there were 96,327 casualties among persons not wearing seat belts, of which 26,485 (27·5 per cent.) were fatal or serious.
It is reasonable to assume that if the 96,327 victims had been wearing seat belts only 20·6 per cent. of them would have suffered death or serious injury. This would have meant a reduction in fatal or serious casualties of 6,642 persons, i.e., about 128 fewer deaths or serious injuries per week.
The hon. Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Young) referred to the need for persuasion. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Clitheroe referred to the value of encouragement in trying to persuade people to wear seat belts. However, encouragement simply does not work. It has been tried many times by means of an expensive advertising campaign. I believe that £5½ million has so far been spent on it. The advertisements lift the level of the wearing of seat belts to perhaps 32 per cent. of drivers.

When the advertising stops the figure drops, within months, to where it was. It does not begin to lift the level of the wearing of seat belts up to 80 per cent. or 90 per cent., which has been experienced in Australia, most Continental countries, and countries in other parts of the world where this is compulsory.
It is hopeless to demand and useless to expect that persuasion and encouragement will be effective in achieving the desired results. Therefore it is a waste of time to go on and on talking about voluntary persuasion.
I come to the question of compulsion. The opponents of the Bill, among whom I count many of my hon. Friends, say that it is an infringement of liberty and freedom.
Liberty and freedom are very big words. They have many shades of meaning. Liberty and freedom are not some sort of single indivisible concept. I regard the great freedoms as being those such as freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, and perhaps, above all, national freedom—freedom from being governed by some foreign country.

Mr. Powell: Brussels.

Mr. Jessel: That is another matter, and I do not propose to be drawn into that argument. There are in this House many right hon. and hon. Members, including the right hon. Member for Down, South, who risked their lives in fighting for these freedoms in the last war. I was not old enough to do so myself but I have relatives who did, and I claim to care as much as anyone does about the basic and fundamental freedoms.
There are other hon. Members who might talk of concepts such as freedom from poverty and freedom from fear, by which they mean absence of poverty and absence of fear. They use the word"freedom"in a completely different sense. The words"freedom"and"liberty"cover more than one concept.
We can also use the word"freedom"in relation to small freedoms that we do not have and may not want, such as freedom to drive on the wrong side of the road, or freedom to go through a red traffic light, or, as the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Magee) said, freedom to buy or use heroin, or freedom to drive a


car without brakes or without lights, or freedom to buy dangerous drugs of any sort without a prescription, or freedom to disregard the safety rules in factories.
If we use the word"freedom"over matters such as those, we are really talking about a different dimension from that of the basic and fundamental freedoms. I believe that we, as a legislature, should have the wisdom and judgment to distinguish between those minor freedoms, which are worth sacrificing in exchange for a major advance or improvement in health and safety, and those major freedoms on which none of us would want to compromise.
If we are looking at this question critically and analytically, it is foolish to be hypnotised by the use of the word"freedom"without examining its wide range of meanings. We should adopt a commonsense and not a doctrinaire approach to this matter. I really believe that it is worth a minor infringement and sacrifice of freedom to save a large number of lives and to prevent an enormous number of major injuries. I would feel that we were living in an extremely odd world if any of my hon. Friends were to suggest that we would be losing a last bastion of freedom if we lost our freedom to crash our head through the windscreen of the car or to crush our chest on a steering wheel.
Those of my hon. Friends—and some Labour Members—who oppose the Bill, and who talk about liberty and freedom, are not so much motivated by love of freedom and love of liberty in some philosophical sense as by sheer exasperation at thus being made to do just one more thing in the highly over-governed country and society in which we live. This is shown by the fact that hon. Members never object to the compulsory wearing of seat belts in aircraft. I have never heard one of them object to that, although the purpose, safety, is just the same. They never say that that is an outrageous interference with their liberty.

Mr. Grieve: There is a profound distinction, is there not, between the compulsory wearing of seat belts in aircraft and those in motor cars on the ground? If, in the confined space of an aircraft, people do not, on take-off and landing, wear their seat belts, they constitute a danger to others. The

argument on the Treasury Bench here is that the non-wearing of seat belts in motor cars constitutes a danger to the persons not wearing them.

Mr. Jessel: I doubt whether the wearing of seat belts in aircraft saves any lives. Usually, if there is a crash, all the passengers are killed, anyway. I believe that it is far less necessary to wear seat belts in an aircraft than in a motor car.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Fowler) and other hon. Members have suggested that it is monstrous to have a new crime, but I feel that the use of the word"crime"in this context is a departure from common sense. No one talks of a parking offence as being a crime. It is a minor offence and it is not endorsable on a driving licence. It may be technically a crime, and it is a punishable offence, but to use the word"crime ", as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Clitheroe did, is to put a gloss on it which does not really correspond to reality. I would regard the offence of not wearing a seat belt as being more like a parking offence.
About six or seven years ago, the House decided to make it compulsory to wear crash helmets, and other hon. Members have referred to this. There were similar cries then from the freedom fighters to the effect that it was an interference with liberty, but that decision has saved a considerable number of lives each year. I do not regret the decision we took then, and I pray that we shall take the right decision again today.

6.46 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Atkins: I abstained on the Bill concerning the compulsory wearing of seat belts. I did not then give much thought to the arguments, and I suppose that I was influenced by the thought that in a small minority of accidents it might be better not to be wearing a seat belt. An example is when a car catches fire and there is the fear of being trapped for perhaps a split second or two before being released, because of having worn a seat belt. I thought about that argument at the time, but I believe now that it bears little examination.
In the vast majority of cases, lives can be saved and injuries avoided by the wearing of seat belts. All the evidence


shows this, and that evidence has influenced me into adopting a more rational attitude. It is not only a question of the saving of life and the saving of injury to the driver. We have also to consider the other people in the vehicle and the other drivers who may be run into. We have to bear in mind their freedom and their right to live. It appears to me that the attitude of many of the opponents of the Bill is very narrow-minded and inward-looking, to say the least.
I was also influenced by the argument that the traffic police are overstretched, but that is not really a plausible argument. If there are insufficient traffic police, their number must be increased. To say that we cannot legislate because we have not enough police would be a most irrational attitude to take. Even without the Bill, I believe that the traffic police should be increased in number, but I believe that the Bill is a good one and should be enacted.
The argument of the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Fowler) was most remarkable. He spoke about there being no financial provision in the Bill for the enforcement of the law. If we were to follow that principle with every piece of legislation, we should be in a most remarkable position. There would be arguments against any Bill which required money for its enforcement. That is an argument which ought to be ruled out. If it were to be applied in this case, it would be necessary to apply it in other cases.
I suppose that I was also influenced by the argument about personal freedom. We all show a certain bloody-mindedness from time to time when we are being regulated.

Mr. Ogden: Divine discontent.

Mr. Atkins: We feel this on both sides of the House from time to time. We all kick out occasionally at something, even when we should not. It is a question of personal discontent. But, as has been said, our personal freedoms are not absolute, and they should not be absolute. If they are, they affect the personal freedoms of others. That is an old and well-known argument, and it is one on which I do not wish to dwell.
I have never believed in the right of people to commit suicide, but in some cases that is what people are doing when they do not use seat belts. I have never accepted the argument that people should be allowed to injure themselves. The contrary view must be held by many of the opponents of the Bill, yet they would probably be among the strongest opponents of freeing the taking of drugs.
When people are inadequate they need to be protected against themselves, and that applies to drivers. As has been said several times, a driver's family, friends and other dependants need to be considered. By dependants I mean including people such as highly skilled surgeons or others of great value to the community. These are people on whom other people depend for work. We must consider this Bill from the point of view of the community as a whole as well as from the point of view of personal freedom.
It has also been said that the cost of treatment for injuries and the cost of deaths on the road and a considerable drain on the Health Service. Those services are free, but road injuries and deaths cause a burden on the taxpayer. Opposition Members frequently talk of the need for freedom from excessive taxation. The Bill provides one way of helping to keep taxation down.
There is little need to say much more, because much of it has already been said both by my hon. Friends and by Opposition Members, but finally—and I believe that this is a new point—I should like to mention the relationship between the enactment of laws and morality.
It frequently happens, especially in a society which is not too bothered about morality, that the formulation of law sometimes forms a new morality. For instance, I refer to the attitudes and the legislation on drinking and driving in Sweden, where driving under the influence of alcohol is regarded as a much more serious offence than it is here. To some extent, I believe that that is due to the fact that the laws in Sweden are so hard on drunken drivers. It creates a new attitude, if not a new morality, to what one should do. This has had some effect on me, because although I feel very uncomfortable when I set out on a long journey—especially on a motorway—without having put on my seat belt. I


frequently take short journeys without doing so and without feeling uncomfortable. If there were a law against my doing that, I believe that it would make me feel uncomfortable, and perhaps I would stop and think long enough to fasten my seat belt.
I hope that the controversy will not last for long and that it will soon be put on one side, as it has in the vast majority of other countries, because of the obvious need for the Bill in the interests of the whole of mankind. Persuasion has been tried again and again and has cost the Government a lot of money. Since persuasion has failed, I believe that compulsion is inevitable, although regrettable.

6.54 p.m.

Sir John Langford-Holt: The Bill arouses a great deal of emotion in each of us, but I am sure that we all accept, on whatever side of the argument we come down, that the feelings of those who take a contrary view are perfectly honourable, if mistaken. Unlike the hon. Member for Preston, North (Mr. Atkins), the last time this matter came before the House I cast a vote, and I see no reason for having changed my mind.
In introducing the Bill, the Minister, in his usual friendly and charming way, said that experience was the best argument. He then trotted out a lot of statistics, one of which the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Magee) multiplied 10 times without bothering too much about it. I think he raised 10,000 to 100,000.

Mr. Magee: If I may just correct the hon. Member—the number of expected lives saved is of the order of 1,000 per year and the number of expected serious injuries is—my right hon. Friend will correct me if I am wrong—100,000.

Mr. William Rodgers: No, it is 10,000.

Mr. Magee: I see. I apologise.

Sir J. Langford-Holt: I am absolutely delighted at having given the hon. Gentleman a chance to correct himself. I believe that one of the blemishes of the Bill is that the Minister, after all this time, has still not been able to include anything about the exemptions. I realise that there will be exemptions. There may even be exemptions that will be extended or restricted, but I believe that shows what one might almost call a degree of incompetence

when, after all this time, we still have no exemptions—unless there is something far more menacing behind the exemptions.

Mr. Rodgers: It is not a question of"I cannot do it ". I decided that it would be better not to, in the interests of the House. I had a lot of consultations and more will take place. I have no doubt in my own mind what the exemptions should be. It is merely a matter of the best procedure in order to get the final decisions right.

Sir J. Langford-Holt: The method which the right hon. Gentleman is adopting will impose severe restrictions on the House. Will he undertake that when he brings the exemptions forward he will do so one at a time, so that the House will be able to decide on each individual one?

Mr. Rodgers: I apologise for interrupting the hon. Gentleman, but this is a point of which some substance has been made. I made it absolutely clear that in my view there should be a preliminary discussion in the House so that all hon. Members could express their view about what those exemptions should be. When that discussion has taken place, there will inevitably be a further debate under the affirmative resolution procedure.

Sir J. Langford-Holt: The problem is that those exemptions will be discussed in the House probably between 10 p.m. and 11.30 p.m. at the earliest. If the right hon. Gentleman deals with the Bill by the method that he has described, I hope that he will impress upon his right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that the matters should be heard and discussed at a decent time of the week.
I believe the Minister said that there are between 20 and 30 injuries daily as a result of car accidents. The hon. Member for Leyton kept that figure down to 20. Therefore, on this occasion, he was lower rather than higher. If we continue to judge this matter based on the number of accidents, it is true to say that more accidents occur in the home than on the roads—and certainly more suicides. The hon. Member for Preston, North said that he was not in favour of licensing suicide—

Mr. Ronald Atkins: The hon. Member is not suggesting that we should belt up the House, is he?

Sir J. Langford-Holt: The hon. Mem-for Preston, North mentioned suicide. If the hon. Gentleman was present at the time, I think that he, among others, decided that suicide should not be a criminal offence.

Mr. Atkins: I do not remember doing that.

Sir J. Langford-Holt: No, I did not say that the hon. Gentleman did. I said that he might have been in the House. All I know is the House decided that suicide should no longer be a criminal offence.
If the right hon. Gentleman is looking for methods by which he can prevent accidents, he could reduce the speed limit to 20 mph almost overnight. As to more dangerous injuries, I think that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Clitheroe (Mr. Waddington) mentioned the dangers of sport, particularly climbing. One could name many sports that are dangerous. Rugby football, I think, has a much higher rate of accident than any other activity, unless one includes skiing.

Mr. Philip Goodhart: I happen to be enthusiastic about parachuting, which is a reasonably dangerous sport. A number of accidents have occurred among parachutists, and it is now mandatory to wear a second parachute when one does a free-fall drop. Does my hon. Friend believe that it is wrong to have such legislation?

Sir J. Langford-Holt: I must confess that I had not given much thought to the merits of parachuting, but if sports are being thrown about, I might mention hang-gliding, which so far as I know requires no parachute to be worn. But let us come closer to home. I believe that riding motor cycles is 20 times more dangerous than driving a car. Therefore, if the Minister wants to stop accidents, let him introduce legislation to stop the use of motor cycles.

Mrs. Jill Knight: Is my hon. Friend really making the case that because at present we are not trying to stop all accidents we ought not to try to stop a few?

Sir J. Langford-Holt: No, indeed not. I am trying to direct my attention so far as I am able, with lots of interruptions—which perhaps I have invited—to the question of motor cars. The question

of advice is quite interesting. The Minister gives the House the benefit of all the wisdom and advice that he gets. On the last occasion, I pointed out that the same source of advice—his Ministry-was the same Department as many years ago advised the House that there was no further merit in putting cat's eyes in roads. It was the same Ministry that advised me—it was a suggestion that made, but I do not claim any parenthood—that the idea of box junctions would be self-defeating and pointless and that they would slow up traffic rather than speed it up. Yet we do it today.
As to enforcement, I have a nasty feeling that this type of legislation will go the same way as the dog-tags legislation, under which everyone is supposed to have a collar and identification on his dog, whereas everyone knows that it is not done.
What will happen? When someone is driving, it is practically impossible to see whether his seat belt is properly fitted There is no way of seeing whether it is fixed at the botton. When the policeman comes, and the man is fiddling with the belt, I am certain the reply will be"I was just taking it off"rather than"I was just putting it on."
The question of cost has also been mentioned. In the explanatory and financial memorandum under the heading
 Effects of the Bill on Public Service Manpower 
—quite honestly, I wish that the right hon. Gentleman would explain this a little more, because I can see no way in which the Bill will fulfil what it says here—it states:
 The Bill is not expected to impose any requirements on public service manpower.
Even if it means only one policeman going to the court on one occasion, I would have thought that that statement was bound to be untrue.

Mr. Norman Miscampbell: It means extra manpower, not the manpower that we already have.

Sir J. Langford-Holt: I know that my hon. and learned Friend is a lawyer and that I am not, but it says that it will not
 impose any requirements on public service manpower.


It says nothing about"extra ". It does not say whether extra policemen will be required, it merely refers to
 any requirements on public service manpower.
Discussion and argument have taken place previously about occasions on which people can be in more danger by wearing their sea belts. Examples have been given of the open car, and questions of fire. We even had the example of the claustrophobic old lady. The last point is perfectly valid, because on these occasions some people get positively claustrophobic. However, if we are against this measure, as I am, some sort of alternative must be thought of.
There is a point that I hope the Secretary of State will explain. Under the law of this country, everyone who drives a motor car is required to have third party insurance. I am quite certain that had the arguments about the enormous difference between wearing a seat belt and not been valid, the insurance companies would have drawn a distinction in premiums between those drivers who wore seat belts and those who did not. I suspect that they do not because they know that such a law is unenforceable. Surely the same argument applies to the police.

Mr. Miscampbell: The courts have made that clear distinction all the way through when dealing with damages.

Sir J. Langford-Holt: I am talking about insurance policies and premiums charged. We are talking about an area of deterrence. People seldom visualise themselves going into a court; they always visualise themselves having paid the premium before starting off on their motoring career.
The right hon. Gentleman talked about creating a new criminal offence and said that he is instinctively against legislation. In agreeing with him, I have thought about this for many years. It comes from deep within me that we are doing something that we shall regret. I do not accept the argument about what the French or Italians do, because I do not believe that it is valid. I believe that we should be very careful before we extend this type of legislation in this way.

7.6 p.m.

Mr. Eric Ogden: The hon. Member for Shrewsbury

(Sir J. Langford-Holt) and I have shared many battles and have shared many barricades—who was firing in which direction has differed from time to time—but on this occasion I am on a different barricade from him and firing rather different shots.
Last Friday I argued from these Benches that it was no part of my version of Socialism that the State, Government, or Parliament should do for other people what they are perfectly capable of doing for themselves. One week later I come to this same Chamber and these same Benches, ready and willing, however reluctantly, to support a Bill that will compel people to do something that we know they are perfectly capable of doing for themselves. That is a dilemma which applies not only to me but to many other hon. Members.
Last Friday Conservative Members argued that there should be compulsory legislation—what it was about is not particularly important—whereas today those who argued for compulsory legislation are arguing for personal liberty. At least we recognise the contradiction.
I go so far as to give the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) the principle, if he will give me the custom and practice. In this instance I believe that the custom and practice will be more important to people than the high principle. I cannot deny that we are restricting the liberties of the subjects of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. On the custom and practice, I argue that we ought to do so and I remind the right hon. Gentleman of a little saying,
 He was right,
Quite right,
As he drove along,
But he's just as dead
as if he'd been wrong.
Surely we are talking about the practical results of the legislation. It may be that if the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell), who has played a decisive role in this argument over many years, catches the eye of the Chair he will persuade me differently between seven o'clock and nine o'clock, but I do not know whether we are here to be persuaded or merely to make statements.
At the beginning of the debate my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis) argued that this should


be a balanced debate. He has helped that by absenting himself from the Chamber for most of the time. The only way in which that could be achieved would be to have a vote at the beginning, have a debate, have a vote at the end and see whether any possible differences emerge We cannot do that.
All the evidence that has come to me over the years, and I presume to other hon. Members, leads me to the inevitable conclusion that if seat belts were worn by all drivers we would have fewer deaths, and fewer and less severe injuries. The argument about what will happen in the future is based on that. The only way of bringing about such a position is to make this compulsory and to hope—in spite of the Conservative Front Bench—that the majority of United Kingdom citizens are law-abiding and will accept the law.
The advice offered by the BMA and the Royal College of Surgeons makes that conclusion inevitable. The detailed proof, which I believe every hon. Member of the House has received, from the Automobile Association makes that clear. The AA asks that the House should support compulsory legislation. I am not going to argue whether this would save 50 or 500 or 1,000 lives. The differences between what ought to happen and what will happen are comparatively unimportant. Whilst I criticise the AA for being, in its higher management at least, the tightest closed shop in Europe, and whilst I might doubt some of its advice on the taxation of motorists, or other things, because it has a vested interest, when the AA says that there should be legislation to restrict the rights of its members and of other citizens, we ought to take proper notice.
We have used a lot of parliamentary time during the last 200 years at least. Governments have enacted Acts of Parliament to restrict and protect fools from their own folly—and not only fools, but the thoughtless and the careless. The AA evidence gives many examples, so we are setting no particularly new precedent.
A little while ago the hon. and learned Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell) made the point that over the last few years the courts have themselves

been differentiating between damages for someone who is injured through absolutely no fault of his own and damages for someone who, even where there is no requirement of law, has been negligent and failed to protect himself purely against the possibility of injury. In the latter circumstance the damages have been less than they would have been if he had protected himself properly.
Those examples take a long time to work through, but it is relevant to the point made by the hon. Member for Shrewsbury. I, too, had hoped that the insurance companies would be able to take a more positive, helpful attitude as regards the difference in the premiums to be paid by someone who promises to use a seat belt at all times—for which he would get a bonus or a reduction in premium—and others who could not give that undertaking. Of course, the only time that the insurance company would know whether that undertaking had been honoured would be when there was a claim and a report of the circumstances of the accident.
The insurance companies tell me that in the main the cost of paying claims for damages to motor vehicles is so much greater than the cost of damages for personal injuries or death that there is no real relationship between the two. There would be no immediate impact and this would make no great difference on the insurance policies or on the use of seat belts.

Sir John Langford-Holt: The point I was trying to make was that if insurance companies could decide that a person was not wearing his seat belt and he was covered only by third party insurance, that would have a greater effect in built-up areas, which is where people mostly do not wear their seat belts.

Mr. Ogden: This is a matter which is still being considered by insurance companies. The options would have to be in very large print, as regards both the benefits and the penalties, but at this stage they do not seem to be able to promise quite so dramatic an effect as I would have hoped.
We have to recognise to a degree the call on the health services, and this was explained in information that presumably came to every English or Welsh Member through the National Association of


Health Authorities in England and Wales. The NAHA says quite clearly that the calls on health services, nurses, casualty staff, doctors, ambulance services, police and fire services in their rescue actions and the use of taxpayers' money in the health services would be reduced if universal use was made of seat belts and it supports a Second Reading for the Bill.
I said"universal use ", but clearly there have to be exceptions, and everybody has his own group of persons in mind. This afternoon we heard one hon. Member, for very valid reasons, say that people with a particular disability or problem should be exempted as a group. Whether this would apply to a group of apparently quite determined ladies of a certain style or stature who are arguing that their problems ought to exempt them as a group from the compulsory use of seat belts, I do not know. I think that"problems"is perhaps the wrong word, and that what is a problem to them might be the envy of their sisters or of male Members of this House, but I hope that there will be ways of resolving their objections.
The Bill will make extra demands on the police, and the House ought to recognise that fairly and squarely. Whether it increases the use of manpower is another argument. It will make extra demands on the police, but I do not think they will be impossible demands. It is not unknown for a constable or a police sergeant to approach a motorist who he knows has been exceeding the speed limit and when the driver knows that he has been exceeding the speed limit. How the police officer goes about dealing with the case depends upon the circumstances and on many other things. He does not have to go up and verbally belt the motorist. The driver's failures and lack of proper regard can be explained in other ways.
I have no doubt that for a period after the passing of the Bill the failure of a motorist to use a seat belt can be pointed out in a way which will not cause any difficulties for the police or occasion any loss of regard for them. In fact, one radar trap I can think of on a Saturday morning or afternoon in Lower House Lane in Liverpool leads to many more difficulties than would anything under the Bill. So, while we recognise that the police will have more to do, I do not think it

need cause any great problem between police and public.
I have not always been a consistent user of a seat belt, but I am now, and I find it only takes a moment of time. At first it seemed to take a long time to fasten it, but now it seems to take only a moment. It is a habit. It gets more difficult with the age of the car and the type of seat belt. If Ford can develop its"instant"device, that will help. I believe that I have a better feel of the car when I am wearing my seat belt. I feel more at home in the car and get a better response from the car than before, and my conversion was due to three things.
The first is the Jimmy Savile campaign, and we ought to pay a tribute to those who organised it and carried it through. It was not a failure; it was a first-class campaign, but it was not as successful as we had hoped it would be. The new one"The Blunders"is coming along now and is of interest, again, and is compelling attention. It has a real impact, and I use that word advisedly.
The second reason for my conversion was the reminder from my two boys every time we get into the car that we all ought to"clunk-click ". The third is that, having voted for the last Bill dealing with seat belts, I felt compelled to honour my own obligations.
As it is, I think that we all make our minds up on this. I grant hon. Members who oppose the Bill their principles. I have to go for the practice. Some good will come of this and the price will not be too high. Certainly at this time it is a price that I am prepared to pay and I believe that the majority of my constituents will also be prepared to pay.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): Order. As I understand it, the winding-up speeches are due to begin at 9.15. There are roughly 14 hon. Members still anxious to take part in the two hours remaining before those speeches. May I therefore appeal for brevity so as to be able to accommodate as many hon. Member as possible?

7.18 p.m.

Dr. Reginald Bennett: I will certainly be brief. It seems to me that politics is very largely an irrational subject. Here we are in this House engaged


in a debate which has ranged from the sombre to the absurd, if I may say so without disrespect. And this is a debate in which I do not believe there is any difference at all on the facts. I do not think there has been any quarrel between the leading exponents of cither view, the ayes and the noes, in this debate. The curious thing is that there is room for this extreme variance in attitudes deriving from the very same evidence. That, surely, is one of the things that makes politics an imponderable subject, as perhaps the next few days may show. We agree about the evidence.
As a more or less disinterested party, so long as I am allowed to be, I would never attempt—at least not to the extent of any extravagance—to dissuade people from committing suicide. If they wish to do so, that is up to them. As for the carnage on the roads, about those who have asked for it and got it there is nothing to be said. That may be a rather harsh attitude, but I do not believe that any other is reasonable.
However, one of the factors that has moulded my attitude on the matter is that on which the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Ogden) has just touched—that nobody has a right, by sheer foolishness, to put huge charges on our faltering Health Service by taking up masses of man hours, woman hours, bed hours and ward hours in hospitals when he would not need to be there if he had been reasonably forward-looking and cautious. I am talking not about people's driving abilities but the simple matter of using the seat belts, which have to be there and can be used.
That is why I deplore the lack of use of seat belts. I deplore the part played by the injured—the self-injured if one likes. It is that which makes me feel that the use of the seat belt must be made compulsory.
We have heard the evidence, which nobody would attempt to deny, that the incredible amount of taxpayers' money that is being spent on trying to persuade is unavailing. I think that the use of seat belts has increased from 10 per cent. to 30 per cent., in broad terms, after the expenditure of millions of pounds. I do not think that the spending of any more millions would make any further difference.
I think that most of us would acknowledge, if we thought of it at any time, that there is something curious in the psychology of our fellow citizens, perhaps not excluding ourselves. A very reasonable man, who will talk logically and reasonably in a debate in the House about all the values that we are discussing, becomes positively insufferable when he gets inside a car.
We can go back in history and think of the days of chivalry. When a fellow got into his tin can and was hoisted by a davit and dropped into the saddle of his 1-hp hay-motor, he shot off and was thoroughly bloody-minded to everybody he met. I believe that the same thing happens in the firm's Cortina on the Cromwell Road, or anywhere else. People who would be perfectly reasonable, and agree with everything that is said about the advisability of wearing seat belts, raise the metaphorical number of fingers at everyone outside once they get inside their armour plating. They think"To hell with the seat belts."
I do not believe that that highly irrational attitude is subject to any reasoning or to the spending of millions of pounds by a well-meaning Government Department. If that is so—and I ask the House to believe that it is—I see no alternative to a degree of compulsion. That is why I favour the Bill.

7.24 p.m.

Mr. David Stoddart: I like the analogy of the hon. Member for Fareham (Dr. Bennett) with the knights of old in their suits of armour. But there is a difference. Although they used to fight each other tooth and nail and knock each other off their horses, those knights at least were chivalrous to women. When male drivers see a woman on the road, they lose every bit of chivalry that they have.

Dr. Reginald Bennett: There is an example in Portsmouth that is an exception.

Mr. Stoddart: Male drivers try to drive a woman off the road. That is what the motor car has done to us.
As so many hon. Members have pointed out, the carnage on the roads is horrific. I have just obtained from the Library


the figures for the total number of British casualties during the Second World War. In the five years of that war we had 583,847 casualties. In the past five years there have been 1,750,000 casualties on British roads. That is the measure of the problem. The Second World War was undoubtedly the most horrific experience that we in this country have ever had, yet the number of casualties on our roads is about three times as great as it was during that war.
I have worn a seat belt for many years, and so have my family. I have never suffered any discomfort from wearing one. Indeed, I now feel very uncomfortable unless I have one on. I feel rather odd in the train going home at night because I am not wearing a seat belt. That shows how used one can become to wearing that appliance.
We are talking not only about drivers but about front-seat passengers. It is easy enough to tell my young son"Put your seat belt on." Within limits, I can say the same to my wife, although I have to be rather more careful about that. I can say it to a very good friend, but it is much more difficult to say it to a stranger or a passing acquaintance. One can hardly tell such a person"Get your seat belt on or I do not drive you."
That is a difficulty that a driver who is convinced of the argument for wearing seat belts has when taking a passenger. The compulsory wearing of seat belts would remove it. It would be the law, and the driver—who, after all, has a big responsibility for his passenger—would be able to tell the passenger"It is the law that we wear seat belts, and I am sure that you will put yours on."
We have heard a great deal about the saving of lives and preventing serious injuries. It is estimated that 1,000 lives would be saved and 10,000 serious injuries prevented by the use of seat belts. I emphasise that those are the figures for every year, not simply one year.
The numbers of people killed and injured since we last debated a similar measure are 3,000 and 30,000 respectively. It is likely that if we had passed the legislation three years ago there would be 3,000 people alive today who are now rotting in their graves and 30,000 who would be playing tennis or football, having a good time with their

families and living a normal life, who are now in hospital or in a wheelchair. That is the measure of the three-year delay.
Every hon. Member values individual persona] freedom, but the freedom of many people is tied up with this measure. There is the freedom of the policemen, the ambulance men, the doctors and the nurses who have to deal with the casualties. Ambulance men and policemen suffer a horrific experience when they see people splashed all over a motor car or all over a road and have to scrape them up. Their individual freedom is involved and should be considered.
When a serious injury occurs, the position of the relatives has to be considered. There is the wife who sees her life as well as her husband's life ruined because he is confined for the rest of his life to a wheelchair, because of a road accident. She might have to spend 40 years looking after her husband. Her freedom is curtailed—her freedom to go out and about as she would like to with her husband and family. Do we not also have to consider her freedom?
There is the freedom of road users to be safeguarded against other road users. Very often when an accident occurs at speed the door of the car flies open and the occupants are thrown out. The car then careers on and hits the car of an innocent motorist coming the other way and kills or injures him. Does not he have some freedom? A driver wearing a seat belt is likely to remain in his car and be able to control it so that it avoids other vehicles. Those who talk about personal freedom should take into account all those other freedoms that I have mentioned.
The estimated yearly cost to the community of the non-wearing of seat belts is £60 million. The cost to the Health Service is £7·2 million every year, equivalent to building and running a 650–bed general hospital. That must be taken into account by those of us who are concerned about the long waiting lists and shortages in the Health Service.
Undoubtedly, most people obey the law, as the figures in Australia and New Zealand have shown. After seven years of operation of the law the wearing rate is 75 per cent. in Australia and 90 per cent. in New Zealand. The evidence


clearly shows that lives and serious injuries have been saved. People will obey the law.
If the wearing of seat belts is made compulsory and people do not wear them, insurance companies may have something to say if there is an accident, because the law will have been broken, and that may affect the insurance policy. The police are worried about enforcement but the trouble is, although I have great respect for the police, they hold some very conservative views on this subject. The police in general appear to believe that their sole role should consist of fighting serious crime. That may be the role of the police, but I do not think it is. I believe they have a many-sided role in a democratic society. If we pass the Bill we must ensure that it can be enforced by enabling the police force to recruit more men or by setting up a separate traffic police force.
I believe this measure is long overdue, and I sincerely hope that when hon. Members vote tonight they will think of all those who are dead but could be alive, and the people who a year from now will be dead unless we pass this legislation.

7.35 p.m.

Colonel Sir Harwood Harrison: My assessment of the debate is that it is between those who think that if the Bill goes through their liberties will be curtailed and those who think it vital that the Bill should go through to save lives and money and the time of the police, nurses and doctors in doing certain jobs.
We all have a number of liberties, many of which we have given up in war and at other times. We have to weigh in our mind whether it is better to give up a liberty to produce something good. A lady for whose driving I have the greatest respect and who as far as I know has never been involved in an accident told me that she did not think she should have to give up a liberty she prized. She might not have wished to give up that liberty, but I think we should give up liberties if it is necessary for the sake of society as a whole.
I am president of the Motor Schools Association and also on the executive of the Advanced Drivers' Association. Therefore,

I come into contact at certain periods of my life with people who are concerned with teaching people to drive and assessing how they drive. I have always been grateful to the Secretary of State for coming down to Worthing on a rather wet day to open my annual school. I am grateful to him for all he said and what he is doing to help us. The Motor Schools Association is the largest free association of men and women who have come together for a common good. There are some smaller associations which could easily join us but they either have not the money to do so or they like to hold out. The Department knows that we are the people to ask for our knowledge of motoring.
Drivers must be prepared to give up some liberty. I confess that if I had my way I would not wear a seat belt because I am lazy and will not take the trouble. I do not take the trouble to put it on when travelling from my house half a mile down the road to the village shop, but that is when I should be most careful. I put it on when driving up to London, because I feel that it is more risky, but that is not so. It is on the short trips, when one thinks that nothing can happen, that an accident may occur.
After I had been a Whip, I was fortunate in drawing a place in the private Members' ballot three times running. Each time I chose to debate the safety of the roads. At that time I was more closely in touch with road safety and could quote figures. Figures have been quoted today but I shall not give any. I learnt how much suffering and loss of life and limb was caused by not wearing seat belts. It is argued that not wearing a seat belt can in some accidents be beneficial. Those occasions are rare, and we must consider where the greater need lies. We should all wear seat belts.
I hope that the Bill will go through and that we shall become so accustomed to wearing seat belts that we will not consider it inconvenient. I am certain that we shall save money. We hear that the economy is going wrong, and any money that can be saved on hospital charges or elsewhere is worth while, and, by jove, the amount of suffering prevented will be legion. I should not like to think that people are injured unnecessarily.
I presented a Private Member's Bill to increase rear lights on cars or bicycles from one to two, and that Bill passed through the House and was my contribution to road safety. Records confirm that that measure has saved lives. I shall vote for the Bill tonight. I do not know what sort of drivers my grandchildren will be but I hope that, like my son and daughter, they will be good. I hope that they will not be involved in an accident of their own causing, and if they are involved in an accident caused by someone else, I should not like to think that a Bill had not been passed that could prevent their being injured.
I walk with a slight limp. I do not want to be ungallant, and I can only see one lady present. Perhaps I can say that I maintain that that was caused by a lady driving up Whitehall far too fast. She knocked me over, threw me on to the roof of her car and chucked me off into the gutter. I woke up 15 hours later when, fortunately, my wife was by my bedside.
I am sure that the Bill will do nothing but good, and we are here in Parliament to do good. We cannot better spend our time than helping the passage of the Bill. It was a pity that it was not passed last time, and the opportunity does not often occur to put right what one has previously missed. I wish the Secretary of State luck with the Bill. It is presented late in the life of this Parliament, and was cut short in the last Session. I hope that it is not struck off the list in the remaining months of this Parliament.

7.45 p.m.

Dr. M. S. Miller: The hon. and gallant Member for Eye (Sir H. Harrison) was perhaps giving an indication of chivalry in reverse. I can just imagine the hon. Member for Fareham (Dr. Bennett) dashing about on his horse, although I do not know whether he could get a steed to hold him.
We should be debating the efficacy and value of seat belts and not the infringement of personal freedom, as though freedom were only an abstract concept. It is no wonder that Parliament sometimes gets a bad name. We have carnage on our roads, and this House often talks as if it were a university debating society dealing with an abstract concept. My hon. Friend the Member for

Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Ogden) hit the nail on the head when he talked of balancing the practical situation against the abstract principle called freedom. We are living in the real world. We are not discussing how many angels can balance on the head of a pin, but what is happening year in and year out on our roads.
I am much more impressed by the statistics of carnage than by the wonderful rhetoric of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). It is always dangerous to evangelise and assume a superiority over one's fellows in grasping a concept. It is intolerable to talk of infringement of freedom as if we were extending to a ridiculous extent laws for the protection of the public. Of course it is interfering with an individual's rights to injure himself or other people, but that interference does not worry me overmuch.
Reasonable people know where to draw the line. A well-thought-out slight improvement should not open a floodgate, as those who are against the Bill suggest. They suggest that such legislation opens the gate to all kinds of infringements of personal liberty and freedom, whatever that means.
There are countries whose legislatures start with that basic assumption that people are incapable of thinking for and looking after themselves and believe that every possibility of any kind of individual or personal freedom should be banned and that only gradually and very gently should limited exemptions be introduced.
But we in this country start from almost the opposite standpoint. We believe that people can think for themselves and very often want to do for themselves things which impinge upon the rights and freedom of others. We believe that interference with that freedom is necessary in some instances, and I believe that in a matter such as this it is not only necessary but vital.
I am impressed by the statistics. We have seen repeatedly the incontrovertible evidence of the value and efficiency of seat belts. Doctors throughout the country are in the forefront of the demand for this legislation. Medical and nursing staffs of hospitals near motorways or dangerous junctions will tell anyone of the deaths which could have


been prevented if seat belts had been worn.
Many of these highly respected members of the medical profession believe that it is wrong to use their scarce skills and resources in matters which are so largely and calculatedly self-inflicted. I use that word advisedly. Under the influence of emotion—that is, adrenalin, or any other drug—people may do something silly or even dangerous. It is an action carried out in the heat of the moment. But that cannot be said about not wearing a seat belt. That is a deliberate act of omission, and it is not something about which one feels emotionally charged and which leads to an act of folly.
As a doctor, I believe in prevention. How much more do we need to be convinced about the value of seat belts? I concede that this matter involves an interference with rights and liberty, but I argue that that interference is minimal and is vital in present circumstances. I am not impressed by those who say that they are not concerned about what happens in other countries. I am concerned that other countries have had experience of this. They have had seat belts legislation for some time, and their statistics bear out what we believe would happen in this country.
I ask my Front Bench colleagues whether it would be possible for them to ensure chat seat belts are made more comfortable. Many seat belts tend to hold the body too closely and too tigthly. All belts should be of the inertia reel type.
We are talking here about the driver wearing a seat belt, because in the final analysis it is the driver who is responsible for steering and controlling the car. Often, however, it is more important for his passenger to be wearing a belt. It is possible for the driver with a quick reaction to brace himself. That possibility does not exist for the passenger, who can get thrown through the windscreen and break his or her neck or, at least, suffer serious injury to the face and head.
I mention one psychological point. One of my hon. Friends said that he felt better when he was wearing a belt. That is true, and it could be dangerous. Wearing a seat belt neither guarantees total protection

from an accident nor does it, per se, have any intrinsic value. Wearing it may give some people a feeling of security which could make them less careful. That is an important point of psychology. Although legislation is not enough in a matter of this kind, it is essential. Equally it is essential that we should continue with the campaign of persuasion as well as with this Bill, which I hope we shall pass.

7.55 p.m.

Mr. Ivan Lawrence: I have the honour and pleasure—that is all I have out of it—to be the president of the National Association of Approved Driving Instructors, which, as an organisation devoted to road safety, is very concerned about the Bill. If, by some misfortune, the Bill should become law, I hope that the Minister will see the sense of exempting driving instructors while they are involved in tuition. To lock an instructor into a belt at the moment of deceleration, which usually coincides with the pupil's moment of danger, would be not to save lives but to put lives at risk.
I am wholly in favour of seat belts, of encouraging people to wear them, and of insurance companies and courts applying sanctions to encourage their use, but I am against the Bill because it abuses the criminal law and the criminal process. Why should any citizen be forced by criminal sanction to wear something which could in some circumstances kill him? That has never been a legitimate principle of our criminal law. Why should anyone be forced by criminal sanction not to hurt himself? That was never, at least until the crash helmet legislation, a principle of our criminal law. Where will it end? Why make driving without a seat belt a crime because it could save a thousand lives, when we could stop cigarette smoking by the criminal law and save 20,000 lives a year? Why not stop by making it criminal the drinking of alcohol, which would save hundreds of thousands of lives?
When will we realise that laws not only cannot cure every evil but are frequently counter-productive? Here the harm done to our criminal process may well exceed any good that the law can do. We can see that in advance, so why do we persist with it? If there was a law which made it a criminal offence to smoke or to drink


alcohol, neither of which, of course, do I advocate, just think of the amount of bereavement that would be saved, the number of hospital beds that could be put to better use, and the time and energy of our doctors and nurses which could be more usefully employed. Yet we do not consider doing that. What is it about the motorist that requires him to be singled out and subjected to this sort of legislation?
The Bill would also be an abuse of our criminal law because it would be an abuse of our criminal process. We can foretell that there will be widespread evasion of a law such as this. If there was 20 per cent. evasion among the 26 million people with cars, that would involve millions of British subjects evading the law. That could only drag the law further into disrepute. The Bill would irritate the police—and they are the defenders of the liberties of the subject. How many times would they be forced to stop motorists who would subsequently be found to be exempt from the seat belt law because they were too big, too small, too pregnant or too disabled, or because they fell within one of the other exemption categories? How irritating would this be to motorists who are stopped in these circumstances, and how much harm would this do to the relationship between the police and the public?
How much harm would it do to the legal system to have our courts even more overcrowded than they are now? Would not people feel that the legal system was once again failing and that the system of justice was yet again slowing down?
The harm to justice caused by this legislation will be far more substantial than we think. When will we realise that every little infringement of liberty, for whatever good cause, diminishes the whole concept of liberty? If life is the only criterion, why did we sacrifice so many millions of lives in two world wars? Why did we not in the Second World War lie down and say"Because millions of people may die, we should let our liberty be taken away before the onset of the Nazis "? The answer is that more important than lives is the concept of liberty.
Since I have been in the House I have seen the cogent arguments and the telling pleas of hon. Members on both sides of the House persuading and succeeding

in persuading the House that it is only a very little piece more of liberty that we are withdrawing and for such great benefits and advantages. As a result we have far fewer of our freedoms now than was ever dreamed possible a few years ago. In the end we shall find that our liberties have all but disappeared. It might be possible to save more lives in Britain by this measure—and by countless other measures. But I do not see the virtue in saving more lives by legislation which will produce in the end a Britain where nobody wants to live.

8.1 p.m.

Mr. Austin Mitchell: I welcome the Bill, but in welcoming it I should like to express my concern at the way that it has been treated before it reached the Floor of the House. It is an important and vital measure for saving lives and has had strong support from public opinion, as demonstrated by the opinion polls. It would be more directly useful in saving lives and avoiding injuries than most measures that the House could possibly discuss but it has been so long delayed in being brought to the Floor of the House. It has been left to moulder until a time when the Government have seven more months—seven more days on some accounts—of life and it has been left to the end of the week, at a time when many hon. Members who would support it are wearing their seat belts as they drive east, north, west, or south, or around their constituencies.
The Bill has been asked to run the parliamentary race with a ball and chain around its legs. I am reconciled to this treatment only when I see the lack of vision with which it has been greeted by all too many Conservative hon. Members. That helps me to restrain my indignation at its treatment. We are told of driving instructors, for example, who seem not to have heard of inertia reel belts which allow them to move within the vehicle. The attack on the Bill has been paraded as a sort of freedom fight, based on the wholly specious argument that we should not infringe a principle by legislating to protect the individual from the consequences of his own actions.
It is wrong to erect that principle against a measure of such importance. No principle can lead hon. Members to discount the savings in deaths and injuries that the Bill could provide. The principle


has been breached already in the crash helmet and health and safety at work legislation. It is a principle that ignores our obligations to others. We are not isolated individuals taking decisions whether or not to wear seat belts. Those decisions affect the families of motorists killed and injured and place great strain on the medical services. The principle also ignores the after-effects of accidents and the need to keep control of the vehicle which can be facilitated by the wearing of a seat belt.
The principle ignores the statistics. In praising the Bill, the Conservative Party spokesman on transport—the ayatollah—accepted the figures on the saving of death and injury although some of his lower-tollahs have queried those figures. Even if the figures are reduced marginally—or substantially—that would still be a major saving in deaths and injuries. How can the principle be opposed to that? In order for a principle to be effective and maintained, it has to be seen to be beneficial. When it stands against large numbers of deaths and injuries caused by the failure to wear seat belts, one is erecting a principle to an unreal importance. No principle can lead one to close one's vision to everything else. A sensible balance must be drawn. I draw that balance in favour of seat belts and in favour of compulsion.
I do so largely because of my own experience. Fourteen months ago I was driving north on the A1 from the House of Commons. A car shot across and I had no chance to avoid it. There was a collision. At one moment, I was in the safe, insulated and artificial world of the new car with its consumer joys as portrayed by advertising driving along the highway. The next moment I was a bleeding, battered piece of humanity in the written-off debris of a car. It is not only an intimation of mortality but it shows how suddenly accidents can occur and the need to be constantly prepared. Part of that preparation has to be the wearing of a seat belt.
Like another hon. Member who spoke, I am here today because I was wearing my seat belt. It saved my life and, at the very least, avoided much more serious injuries than those which I incurred. Therefore, I see the wearing of a seat belt as essential and compulsory. Even with

my experience and that warning, there are occasions—isolated occasions admittedly—when I, too, forget to wear my seat belt. There needs to be the constant reminder of the law—a constant memory-jogger. It is not as if we were trying to erect the massive machinery of the police State to force motorists to wear their seat belts. The sight of policemen, the occupants of a police car, or other motorists wearing their seat belts provides that constant reminder. In that respect, the law will be self-enforcing and self-policing.
If someone like myself, with the experience of a severe accident, still occasionally forgets to fasten a seat belt, it is a demonstration of the need for a constant reminder, which would be provided by the law. My passenger in the accident to which I have referred sustained far worse injuries than myself. He is still undergoing treatment. He was not wearing a seat belt—I had not asked him to wear a seat belt. I bitterly regret that fact, and it is something that will remain with me for the rest of my life. The law would clear up the embarrassing situation and also the situation in which passengers are diffident about wearing a seat belt for fear of insulting the driver, or the driver is afraid to ask his passenger to wear one. It would clear up that difficult problem and make the driver responsible not only for his own safety but for that of his passengers.
I strongly support the Bill. It is a measure which should have been carried many years ago and it does no more than bring us into line with many other countries. I submit that the opponents of the Bill need to prove, first of all, that the statistics that have been quoted are wrong—the saving of 1,000 lives and 10,000 serious injuries per year. They may quibble and reduce the margin by one-tenth or even one-third, but there would still be a major saving demonstrably arising from the Bill. That cannot be eliminated by the quibbles and arguments that have been brought against it.
Secondly, the opponents of the Bill would need to show that the voluntary system is working and that it produces the kind of compliance which they want to see. That voluntary system is not working. We have only to trust our eyes when we are driving to see how many motorists are not wearing their seat belts. It might


be an average of about 30 per cent. wearing them but no higher, and any driver must be aware that, given the risks that we face when driving that lethal instrument, the motor car, the number of drivers wearing seat belts is a comparatively small minority.
If the libertarian argument is to be mobilised, its supporters need to show to a public which the opinion polls indicate will not be convinced how essential a freedom it is to go head-first through a windscreen, to be bashed against a steering column, or to have one's face cut and bloodied against a windscreen. Given the savings in death and injury that would occur from the slight compulsion of wearing seat belts, I submit that it is not a question of basic freedom; it is a matter of social responsibility and of creating a climate in which people will do what is in their own best interests. Drivers have responsibilities not ony to themselves. It has been asked why the motorist is picked out for special treatment. The reason is that he is in charge of a lethal instrument.
Motorists have obligations to their families, their dependants, themselves, society and the medical services which are brought in when there is an accident. The compulsory wearing of seat belts is a minimal way of fulfilling that obligation.

8.11 p.m.

Mr. Jerry Wiggin: We have had a good and intellectual debate, but I wonder what would have been our reaction if, instead of discussing motor cars and seat belts, we had been discussing an epidemic illness that affected 200 people a week, killed 15 people every week and cost the community £60 million a year and the cure for which was readily and freely available in an innocuous medicine, yet the people of this country refused to take that free medicine.

Mr. Powell: Vaccination.

Mr. Wiggin: The effect of vaccination was to wipe out a dread disease which caused immense human suffering. Sadly, some people were seriously affected by the ill consequences of vaccination. I shall deal later with the ill consequences of wearing seat belts. I am far from convinced that the vaccination programme is comparable to the wearing of seat belts or has done damage to the people of this country.

Dr. M. S. Miller: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that until recently the vaccination of children under six months of age was compulsory in this country?

Mr. Wiggin: I am well aware of that. That is the point that the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) was making.
If 25 people a day were jumping off Westminster bridge, does anyone seriously imagine that there would not be an outcry from the public, the press and the House demanding that we should put up a barrier to prevent such action? Of course there would be. The barrier would be put up within a few days.
Most hon. Members taking part in the debate have been through it more often than Red Rum has been round Aintree. Although we have won the vote, just as that: horse has won the race, we have not yet collected the prize. The Government should be substantially criticised for talking about introducing the legislation but leaving it so late that its chances of becoming law are slim indeed.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Fowler) made much play of the problems of supervising the law, but in no country where the wearing of seat belts is compulsory—and they total 21 to date—has there been any suggestion that supervision has been a problem. About 18 months ago I spoke to the chief superintendent of traffic police in Auckland, a city of more than 1 million people. He told me that not only was supervision no trouble but that the subject had not even been raised with the force since the law was first enacted six or seven years ago.
The Government's suggestion that the regulations for exemption should be produced in draft form is useful and deals with many of the criticisms levelled at the Government on that aspect of the legislation.
Both sides of the argument accept that seat belts are a good thing. The differences are over freedom of the individual and whether there can be imposition of injury by seat belts. The hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Magee) and my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel) put such good arguments about the freedom of the individual and liberty that I do not wish to follow them.


However, is it seriously suggested that the 21 other countries in which the wearing of seats belts is compulsory are any less keen on freedom or the liberty of their individuals? Of course not. They are just as keen as we are and they have thought that the small price was worth paying.
Comparisons have rightly been drawn with drugs legislation, and perhaps the only hon. Member who can take a righteous attitude to the question of drugs legislation is my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell). I always acknowledge that he voted against the misuse of drugs legislation because he thought that it was a genuine imposition against the freedom of the individual. However, I do not find that many of my constituents consider that to be the case, and when the comparison is made I think that they take the point.
The Automobile Association has supplied a substantial list, drawn up by learned counsel, of legislation that it considers has been passed, over many centuries, dealing with the right of the Government to impose upon individuals legislation to protect them from their own folly. The legislation goes back hundreds of years in some cases.
Can seat belts cause death? I hope that no hon. Member will base his assessment of that question on the inexpert opinions sometimes given by coroners and widely publicised in newspapers. They are not based on scientific assessments.
Mr. C A. Hobbs examined 2,879 cases to find examples of seat belts being disadvantageous. He found that none of his vast sample would have fared better without a seat belt. It is almost impossible to argue in the mess, disaster and catastrophe of a serious car accident just what might have caused the death of the driver or passenger, but I have spoken to a number of people who have researched these matters and I am convinced that if there are any cases of seat belts causing injury, they are so infinitesimal and the proof is so lacking that it is an argument which we should rightly reject.
I asked the Secretary of State last week if he had any evidence that wearing a seat belt had contributed to any deaths last year and, if so, how he came to that

conclusion. The right hon. Gentleman replied:
 I have no such evidence."—[Official Report, 19th March 1979; Vol. 964, c. 390.]
He also gave a helpful answer to another of my questions when he outlined the statistics of drivers and front seat passengers killed in cars and light vans in 1977. There were 44 deaths of persons who had no seat belts fitted to their vehicles. In 407 cases it was not known whether those who were killed were wearing a seat belt. However, 1,509 deaths occurred in vehicles in which a seat belt was fitted but was not being worn. Only 252 deaths occurred in vehicles in which seat belts were being worn.
Those figures speak for themselves and, loth as I am to surrender any personal freedom, I find that the price for preserving this particular freedom is too high. I refuse any longer to stand by and see the dreadful consequences of the present situation prolonged a minute more than necessary.

8.21 p.m.

Mr. Phillip Whitehead: I agree with every word with which the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin) has so eloquently shortened my speech for me.
I join with those other hon. Members who have welcomed back the new hon. and learned Member for Clitheroe (Mr. Waddington) because it gives me the opportunity to pay tribute—it is the only chance one gets in the House—to David Walder, who was a personal friend. He was greatly loved here as one who did not overvalue himself or undervalue others in the way that some people do after a period at Westminster. He died as he lived, in the company of friends, and none of us would wish other than that. He will be greatly missed in the House.
Another hon. Member, Tom Swain, died recently and violently. He was killed quite close to where I live in Derbyshire, in a car accident, a few weeks ago. His death has nothing to do with the seat belt argument, one way or the other, because in the circumstances he would have been killed anyway. I use the fact of his death to remind hon. Members that our number is diminished by deaths on the road more than by any other external cause. We tend to take it less seriously


than if one of our hon. Members were to die in a plane crash—I am not sure that that has happened in peacetime—or in some other way. Traffic accidents are such an extraordinary decimator of the population, which is why we are having this debate.
Many hon. Members who have spoken already have had personal experience of road accidents and though some have been cruelly touched they have not referred to the facts themselves. Others, equally scarred by what has happened, for example my hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell), have done so. On one occasion in my life I made that brief and unpleasant journey through the windscreen of a car in circumstances that I cannot say much about because I was concussed for a considerable time. I am extremely lucky to be alive. The point I make is that I was not wearing a seat belt. Looking back on that accident, I am not only lucky to have survived my own folly; I have had my mind concentrated on the arguments for and against compulsory seat belts.
The opponents of compulsion—their views were cogently expressed from the Conservative Front Bench—have three arguments. They have sought to challenge the validity of statistics, though none of them have done that very satisfactorily. They have advanced the arguments about liberty and utility against this proposed change in the law. I will say a word about all three.
No very clear argument has been advanced by the Conservatives to say that there would not be a saving, though perhaps we cannot quantify such a saving. It may be that the figure of 1,000 lives saved is too high. Perhaps the figure of 10,000 serious injuries avoided is also too high. But when we consider that there clearly would be some saving—and with only one exception from the Conservative Benches I think that this point has been conceded—are we really as free as perhaps some have suggested to put the argument of absolute liberty so high?
Only the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), using the figures for motor cycle accidents since crash helmet legislation was passed, said that the number of deaths each year, gave no clear evidence that there had been an

improvement. The official calculation for 1977—the worst year for deaths which the right hon. Gentleman quoted—was that the lives of 120 motor cyclists were saved who would otherwise have been killed because they would have been involved in accidents when they were not wearing crash helmets.
A great many people are going to die in motor cycle accidents because when one is travelling at speed, and one comes off, there is a pretty good chance of breaking one's neck. That cannot be prevented. However, some may be, and some will be, saved and we should take that argument extremely seriously.
The libertarian argument has been put in its extreme form by the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence). He said that we should not have fought the Second World War if we had wanted to put such a high premium on life and liberty. He pointed out that in a war people would be killed or hurt and that others would be bereaved. That was the most absurd argument of the whole debate. We must look at the degree to which liberty is put to different uses according to society and the times in which we live. We cannot ignore that, because all liberties are adjusted by the uses to which they are put.
There was far more freedom for motor car drivers 100 years ago, because there were no motor cars. Nobody then would have said—nor did people say for a time after cars were introduced—that a driving licence was necesary. For a long time one could drive around without a test, or without any restriction on speed. To this day, in some of those European countries where accident figures are higher than ours, the speed restrictions on roads where wild and high-speed driving is the order of the day are far less restrictive than they are here. That is probably one of the reasons why the accident rates also are higher.
I do not, therefore, take the argument based on liberty in this sense as all-embracing. I do not believe that we can do that. We have to say—I put this to the right hon. Member for Down, South—that one's liberty here has to be seen in terms of how one's freedom to do things impinges on the freedom of others, including their freedom not to be bereaved and not to be left to care for


a helpless invalid or near-vegetable for the rest of their lives.
Finally, I come to the question of the utility of the regulations. It is a regrettable fact that Jimmy Savile's admirable"clunk click"campaign—admirable in its intentions and in its execution—has not, I think, had a sufficiently significant impact. Each time these advertisements come on, the shock horror effect of them is less and the consequential increase in the number of people wearing seat belts for a period after the advertisements appear has diminished.
I believe that, so long as that is the case, we have to do as has been suggested by the National Association of Health Authorities and other bodies which have made representations to us and turn to a measure of compulsion.
I regret that there is a loss of liberty involved, but I do not for a moment believe that it is one which should overwhelm the other arguments. We know the kind of people who will ignore such an advertising campaign. We know the anecdotes—they have been retailed in the House today—and we know that there are people who believe that they always know best and that, of course, nothing will happen to them. A few years ago, the Peter Simple column in The Daily Telegraph invented a rather splendid character, J. Bonnington Jagworth, the terror of the Kingston bypass, who was always going out on burn-ups and who would never come to any harm because he knew best how to use the road and handle his car.
Such people will resent a requirement by law that they belt up. But I believe that they will do it. The problem lies in the implementation of the legislation in the early stages. I think that the lesson of the crash helmets legislation has been that once the law was seen to be what it is, evasion has been relatively negligible. Some hon. Members opposite splutter at that, but how often does one see a motor cyclist of any age now riding without a crash helmet? I have not seen one. I have not even seen any Sikhs riding about without crash helmets, in spite of the protestations which they made. I believe that once people get used to the idea that this is the law of the land, they will come to use seat belts.
One more change which must come in line with what is here proposed—I am sure that it will come once there is this pressure—is in the manufacture of seat belts themselves. Until we have inertia reel seat belts in general use, we cannot effectively introduce legislation which makes the wearing of seat belts compulsory both for driver and front-seat passengers and eventtually, perhaps, for people in the back seats as well.
I have in mind here the kind of seat belt that I have in my car. One of the reasons why I do not wear it all the time, although I should, is that it is very uncomfortable, and I almost disclocate my elbow every time I try to put it on. We do not want seat belts of that kind manufactured in future, and I think that there will hereafter be some urgency in the call upon manufacturers to see how they can improve the design of seat belts and also speed up the process of testing them.
If the Bill goes forward in this Parliament or the next, it will, I believe, offer an admirable occasion for the use of the new procedure that the Procedure Committee has suggested—that is, a Select Committee stage incorporated within its passage. A good deal of what is advanced on both sides of the argument has not yet been properly proved. No one can say for certain everything that needs to be said about this legislation, and one of the ways in which we can clear our minds on the subject much more effectively is to have the relevant witnesses examined in some way or other—in this Parliament or the next—before the Bill becomes law.
In the meantime, I wish the Bill a good passage. I believe it to be one of the most important things that we could be debating this week.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: If the Chair is to accommodate all hon. Members who are anxious to take part in the debate, it is necessary to appeal to hon. Members to limit their speeches to about six minutes.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Bell: The hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) said that it would be wrong to introduce a Bill to make compulsory the wearing of seat belts until the inertia reel belt is generally available. That is precisely what the Bill is doing. I


strongly agree with the hon. Gentleman's remarks about the Bill being pre-eminently a measure for a Select Committee. I wish that it could go to such a committee.
The hon. Gentleman will have heard what Mr. Deputy Speaker said about six-minute speeches. I should like to examine the statistics. I think that I could show that they are substantially and materially wrong. However, I do not know how one can set about examining the statistics in a six-minute speech. Such an examination could be carried out in a Select Committee, where it is possible to call and cross-examine witnesses and elucidate the validity of the propositions that are put forward. I am happy to propose that the Bill should go to a Select Committee.
For me the Bill is basically a matter of principle. I have been rather sorry to listen to the speeches of some Labour Members whose views I often respect and with whom I occasionally agree. They have somewhat diminished and cheapened the concept of liberty, to which we all attach great importance. They have even asked, like a famous character in history,"What is liberty?"Surely the answer is that there is only one sort of liberty, and that is freedom from constraint. There are not many liberties. There is freedom from this and freedom from that, but that is not real freedom.
Reference has been made to the freedom not to scrape people off the road. There is no freedom not to scrape people off the road. There is no such thing as a freedom not to have an injured husband. These are advantages or detriments, but they are nothing to do with freedom. Freedom is immunity from constraint.
We do not run a complicated society without constraints. It is necessary to interfere with people's freedom so that we may live together in rather crowded conditions. The question is always whether the circumstances being alleged justify the intrusion upon freedom from constraint. That is why I consider it important to examine the statistics. If there were not 1,000 deaths a year but 10,000, I should still, on principle, be against the Bill. There may be those whose thresholds for these matters are lower than mine.
A quick study of the statistics may be justifiable. We have heard some wild figures, especially the 1,000 deaths and 10,000 injuries, which are nonsense. About 6,600 people are killed on the roads annually. However, at least 4,000 of those are in categories to which the Bill has no relevance—for example, pedestrians, cyclists or motor cyclists. The Bill is about wearing seat belts in motor cars. It is no good the hon. Member for East Kilbride (Dr. Miller) shaking his head.

Dr. M. S. Miller: It has been said that if the driver is wearing a seat belt and there is deceleration the belt will be tightened around the driver, and he will thus have better control of his car and he may miss the other person.

Mr. Bell: If the hon. Gentleman considers that that is a substantial element in the statistical evaluation, I must pass on. I regard that theory as ridiculous. We are talking about a Bill that refers to the wearing of seat belts in motor cars, and by the front seat occupants of motor cars. Each year about 2,550 people are killed in motor cars. The exempted categories, whatever they are to be, cannot be fewer than 550. I imagine that even those in the back seats would add up to that, apart from all the other categories.
The Bill will affect 2,000 people every year. The Government's statistics show that of those killed 235 were wearing seat belts anyway. Therefore, we must subtract that figure. There is a further category. It was not known whether people in that category were wearing seat belts. They amounted to 103. We are left with 1,650 people per annum whom the Bill might affect. These are Government figures. It is suggested that we may save 1,000 lives every year out of the total of 1,650. On the broadest approach to the subject, that is highly improbable.
In recent months there has been controversy on this matter. The medical people, who supplied the pressure behind this move, reduced the figure to 800 and then to 600. I do not say that seat belts do not work to some extent. However, I suggest that the correct figure is about 250. The Government's statistically based justification is weak. It is based on the difference between those


who were and those who were not wearing seat belts when killed. That is a dangerous extrapolation. The Government's figures overlooked the fact that those wearing seat belts were voluntary wearers. It is reasonable to assume that they wore seat belts efficiently and did so in the hours of darkness.
I come to the compulsory wearing of seat belts in the hours of darkness, when the accident rate is twice as high as in the hours of daylight. We shall not find the reluctant or compelled person wearing seat belts then. I shall not do so because the police will not see me and because I am against the measure. That is easy. Therefore, we cannot extrapolate the saving rate even if we accept the Government's figures.
The Government justified the figures by a reference to the Victoria statistics. Victoria was the only place in the world that showed a 50 per cent. reduction in injuries when compulsory belt wearing was introduced. There were material distinctions. In Victoria the wearing rate was 15 per cent. when the law was introduced. Therefore, the comparison must be between 15 per cent. belt wearing and 90 per cent., which was ultimately achieved. That is different from the British figure of an increase from 33 per cent. to 85 per cent. At the same time, a 60 mph speed limit was introduced in Victoria. If that factor did not falsify the statistics, I do not know what did.
When there was a fuel crisis in the United Kingdom a 50 mph speed limit was introduced. The number of deaths on the roads dropped by 1,400. There is nothing like a speed limit for reducing the numbers of deaths. If we introduced a 50 mph speed limit we should unquestionably save the lives of 1,200 people every year who would otherwise be killed on the roads. In that case we should be dealing with pedestrians, motor cyclists and others. How can we derive any sensible analogy from the statistics?
In the other states of Australia the savings ranged from nil to 30 per cent. In Sweden, when compulsory seat belt wearing was introduced the saving was nil. Every country has its own statistics. If, in Britain, we start with 33 per cent. and take account of the difference between voluntary and compulsory wearing,

and the difference between day and night for frequency of accidents, we arrive at a probable saving of deaths of about 15 per cent. That is what we are talking about. It is a matter for each Member of Parliament to decide for himself.
Serious injuries are said to amount to 10,000 per year. That figure is based on the same calculation to which I apply the same qualifications. Let us start by remembering that the definition of serious injuries is absurd in this context. It applies to someone who stays in hospital for an hour. I am told by my medical advisers that the true figure of serious injuries is about half that mentioned in the departmental statistics. We are in fact starting from 5,000, and to that figure we apply all the considerations that I have been applying to deaths.
It is impossible to do justice to the arguments in the number of minutes available to speakers in the debate tonight, if one is to be fair to other hon. Members who are waiting to speak. All I can say is that if it is a question of balancing magnitude against intrusion into the realm of personal decision, I cannot accept for a moment that this kind of advantage in any way justifies what it is proposed to do. It is a very serious intrusion into people's liberty.
We have heard much argument today about precedent, but this liberty has been encroached on already. In any State in the modern world, freedom is never lost to people who preach dictatorship. It is lost to pressure groups whose purposes are benevolent in every respect. It is erosion by balancing the tangible advantage against the intangible advantage of not accumulating restraints upon the individual until he has been weakened. We cannot have a strong society made up of weak individuals. If the people in that society are constantly prevented from making unwise decisions, they become weak individuals.
We cannot look at seat belts in isolation. That is just where the latest push has come from the medicos. The risk is a very remote one. The risk of serious injury to a driver in this country, if he is doing an average annual mileage, is once in 800 years. The risk of death to a driver of an average mileage is once in 10,000 years. If he is over 25, it is once in 25,000 years. But when we are dealing with a population of 55 million


or 60 million, obviously there is a steady trickle of a few a day, and they are all channelled into the accident and casualty departments of hospitals.
The medicos who write to us watch this wretched procession of damaged human frames and they say"This is terrible, it has got to stop ". But who are they to advise us on the balance between freedom and restraint? By definition, they are people whose minds have lost their balance because of the narrow and intense experience they have.
I must stop, in fairness to others, but I hope that hon. Members, when they vote at 10 p.m., will bear in mind that this argument from my side of the question is not one that can be brushed aside. It is one of the greatest gravity and of the greatest significance for the future of a free society.

8.43 p.m.

Mr. Percy Grieve: The Secretary of State moved the Second Reading of the Bill cogently, courteously and persuasively, but to what end was that persuasion? It was to show the desirability for the individual of using his seat belt. I have a cardiac pacemaker. It is fitted epicardially—that is to say, in my diaphragm. I find it very uncomfortable to wear a seat belt, but I am nevertheless persuaded by the statistics that it is right that I should wear one, and I have brought myself to do so. Perhaps I would obtain exemption under the exemption rules, but on balance I think that it is right for me to wear one. To say, as speaker after speaker has said, on the one hand that it is desirable that the individual should wear his seat belt and, on the other, that society should impose on him by law the obligation of doing so and should make it a criminal offence should he not do so, are two entirely different things.
In my submission to the House, there is here an issue of fundamental principle. The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) put it absolutely clearly to the House. Were we not to limit our freedom to the extent that our freedom impinges on the freedom of others, then, in the words of Hobbes, life would indeed be
 nasty, poor, brutish and short ".

We must limit our personal freedom for the good of others, but only to that extent and to that end.
What we are facing in the House this afternoon is not that problem; we are being asked to say that it is convenient for society—convenient only—that there should be fewer deaths on the road, fewer injuries on the road, and that, therefore, the individual must be compelled, for his own good, to limit his freedom. That is something that I absolutely and totally reject. It is not right. The only precedent—and I am not concerned with precedents because they may be bad—was the crash helmets Bill for motor cyclists. There, at least, there was the argument—and it was a powerful and cogent argument—that motor cyclists were mostly young people and that society has always assumed an obligation for young people in order that they should be protected against themselves.
Here we are not dealing with a section of the community consisting of minors under 21, or 18 as it is now. We are dealing with the whole of society. We must beware of eroding the liberties of the individual because we find it convenient or expedient so to do. In the complexity of modern society, where there are innumerable things at which we can look, it is all too easy to say"Ah, yes, it would be very good for the citizen, the subject of the Queen, to be restricted or constrained in this or that respect ". We should not erode the fundamental freedom of the individual where his act concerns himself alone and go beyond that and say"Ah, yes, for the good of society his freedom should be limited ".
For that reason I see a fundamental clash of principle. The principle for which I stand, for which I hope I was elected and which, for as long as I stand here, I shall sustain, is that I shall not tolerate or support any erosion of the freedom of the individual which is not absolutely essential for the freedom of others and the good of society. I do not see that in the Bill.
I should like to see more education and encouragement for the use of seat belts, but, as many of my hon. Friends have said, it is wrong that people should be compelled to do something which, in fact, may be harmful to them. That is


not the core of the matter, although it is an extension of it. Seat belts may injure or kill—just as vaccination may injure or kill. That is the danger that we get ourselves into when we seek to limit the freedom of the individual. That is the major point and the principle on which I shall go into the Lobby—I hope to see many of my hon. Friends go into the same Lobby—and vote against the Bill tonight.
My second point is that the Bill creates a new crime. We cannot create a new crime, and ought not to do so, unless we have a consensus of a very large part of society. I am not saying, of course, that we must get the consent of burglars to a law against thefts, or the consent of rapists to a law against rape, but, having had a good deal to do with both types of criminal, I find that many of them recognise the justice of the law even when they offend against it. We cannot have a law that many people think is wrong and bad, which goes against the fundamental principle that should govern society. That is the second point that I desire to make.
My final point is that enforcement will create appalling problems for the police, who could be better employed. It will also increase that misunderstanding between the police and the community, which has done so much harm to the reputation of the police, when matters of real moment are tried in our criminal courts.
Suicide in this country ceased to be a criminal offence only after the war. I shall not go into the historical origins of the reasons why suicide was a criminal offence. In the old days it greatly benefited the Crown, who could seize the lands of the suicide because it was a felony. Attempted suicide has also ceased to be a criminal offence. Why? It is because this House respected the freedom of the individual. Indeed, it was a learned lord justice who said only the other day that if Mr. Relf wished to kill himself he was free to do so. The people of this country should be free to decide for themselves whether or not they should wear seat belts.

8.51 p.m.

Mr. Philip Goodhart: Every hon. Member who has opposed the

Bill has conceded that its passage would save some lives and some injuries, even my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell). Every hon. Member who has supported the Bill has also conceded that some diminution of freedom is involved. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Fowler) said, one is faced with a balance.
But, for the average man in this country, the argument about the compulsory wearing of seat belts has already been sold. As my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel) pointed out, it is impossible for the average British citizen to leave or enter this country by air without wearing a seat belt in the aircraft. Of course one can, if one buys or rents an aeroplane, but the average person travelling on one cannot avoid wearing a seat belt. During the last 25 years, I suppose that I have travelled nearly 1 million miles in the air, and I have never come across anyone who has had any conscientious objection to wearing a seat belt in an aircraft.
But I can see that there is a difference in regard to cars. This was put most forcibly by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Clitheroe (Mr. Wadding-ton)—whom we are delighted to welcome back into the House—when he pointed out that a considerable number of people, irrespective of the official statistics put forward and the ministerial statements that only one person in 1,000 will be actively harmed by the wearing of seat belts, still believe that they will be damaged by being forced to wear a seat belt. This is a serious problem which we who support the Bill must face.
I wish that there were some way to exempt those who feel seriously about this. I accept that some people are neurotic and have phobias about it, and I believe that some machinery should be found for exempting them. I therefore regret that in the exemption procedures which the Minister outlined this afternoon we seem to have gone back on some of the exemptions that were contained in the 1976 Bill.
I also take the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield that the problem of enforcement will be considerable. I do not want the police to start a draconian drive against those who do not wear their seat belts. I also regret the


fact that under this Bill the maximum penalty has been lifted from £10, as it was in the 1976 legislation, to £50. I hope that if we get to the Committee stage we will reduce it to £10. But I believe that this Bill is largely self-enforcing.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield cited Australia and France. In both those countries enforcement has been very weak at times. Indeed, in France, when the Bill came in, in the rural areas no attempt was made to enforce it. Yet seat belt wearing went up from about 30 per cent. to about 70 per cent. I believe that would happen here and I believe the enforcement problem can be coped with. A lot of it is going to be done photographically in a few years' time, and I do not believe that there is going to be the friction between the police and the public that my hon. Friend thinks there will be.
To my mind, the clinching argument is that 21 countries now have compulsory legislation and in not one of them is there a serious drive to get rid of that legislation, because it saves a great deal of misery.

8.56 p.m.

Mr. Norman Miscampbell: I think it was the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Ogden) who put his finger on one factor that has been very clear in our debates and to those who have taken part in a number of debates when he asked whether hon. Members were simply making statements or were here to argue. In a sense, those who have taken part in these debates over the years know very well the opinions that are going to be expressed and recognise them when they are expressed.
One thing has become clear in this debate today, and that is that the real issue is not whether, on practicalities, it will work, but the divide between hon. Members on both sides of the House as to whether this is a matter of personal freedom or whether, as the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) put it rather more elegantly, it is a law which interferes with others. It seems to me that that argument is fundamental, and that its resolution is fundamental, to getting the Bill through, because this is why both Front Benches have allowed a free vote on it tonight. I believe that that is not sense. I see no reason why there should

be a free vote. I think that this is something that the Government have to take a grip on, decide their policy and put it through, but because there is this continuing argument whether this is a matter of freedom, both parties treat it as a matter of free conscience.
I want to devote the very few moments available to me to dealing with whether this is in truth a matter which involves personal choice or whether it seriously involves third parties. There seem to me to be three arguments, and I shall take them in reverse order of importance.
The first, I concede, is one of pure practicality and nothing else. There is no doubt that the failure to use seat belts is expensive for the National Health Service. It involves the State in disability payments and medical payments, and it involves us in loss of employment. Of course, it can equally be said that there are a number of other unsocial activities, alcoholism and so on, which result in exactly similar cost to the State, and therefore one can do no more than note that it is a cost to the State.
It is suggested that whether to use a seat belt is in itself a decision which one can make purely on one's own, without involving other people. I put aside the family because in the end, if one goes without a seat belt and ignores the consequences for one's family, on one's own head be it and on their heads be it. Nobody who has been involved in investigations into accidents or has dealt with them legally afterwards can have the least doubt about the terrible trauma when accidents happen when seats belts are not used.
For the motorist, perhaps innocent, who runs into another car and sees the other driver or his passenger thrown on to his own car or mangled on the road in front of him, it is not a matter of no importance. The incident will cause him misery at the time, and he will remember it for the rest of his life. It will cause him, and perhaps his passengers and others who see it, anxiety over months and years. A serious motor accident affects other people desperately. It may ruin their whole motoring lives.
The most important question is: what is the purpose of wearing a seat belt? Is it simply to protect the individual, or does it help third parties? My hon. and


learned Friend the Member for Clitheroe (Mr. Waddington), whom I, too, welcome back as a very old friend, was inclined to dismiss this matter as of no importance. I think that at the end of the last debate, when I made this point, the right hon. Member for Down, South remarked to me"If you are right, and it really does affect third parties, the argument is reversed ". He will probably accept that.
Does the wearing or not wearing of seat belts seriously affect third parties? Let us look at the arguments. I draw my support from some helpful figures supplied to me by an expert who has been mentioned before. Nobody who thinks about the matter can long avoid coming across the figures supplied by Dr. Mackay, reader in traffic safety at Birmingham university. He is the senior expert at the university.
The first thing that becomes clear from the figures of Dr. Mackay's papers and from other statistics is that the impression that traffic accidents involve head-on collisions and that therefore one is not protected by one's seat belt is false. At the very most, 60 per cent. of accidents occur in that way. Twenty per cent. of those are collisions on either wing, though they are included within the figures for the front of the car. Therefore, in a sense they are glancing blows.
When we look further at the figures we find that no less than 25 per cent. are side impacts. Moreover, 26 per cent. of all accidents involve no other vehicles. They are the kind of accident in which someone tries to avoid a dog or another car, does not come into contact with it, but hits a hedge, bollard or pavement.
It seems clear beyond doubt that all such accidents can be described as glancing blows. One must conclude that if the driver is retained in his seat and can control the vehicle after the glancing blow he will be able to prevent it doing more damage and hurting people on the pavements or in other vehicles.
Casualties in cars are untypical when the only occupant is the driver. More often than not—the ratio is three to one—there is more than one occupant. The driver has a duty to his passengers to wear a seat belt, because he can then control the car better.
We have the startling figure that 80 per cent. of accidents occur when vehicles are being driven at speeds between 15 mph and 30 mph or 35 mph—there is a variation between the statistics for this country and abroad. Let us take the higher figure and say that they occur at speeds between 15 mph and 35 mph. Within those limits there is every chance of the driver being able to control the vehicle once the first glancing blow has occurred. That applies to as many as 50 per cent. of all accidents. In the time available I cannot do justice to the statistics, which I have to put very badly to the House.
There is not the least doubt that the arguments about personal freedom are phoney. They do not stand up. People are not being asked just to protect themselves as occurred when the wearing of crash helmets was made compulsory. They are asked to protect, first, their passengers and, secondly, those who will be gravely hurt if they cannot control their vehicles. Lastly, they are asked not to be so selfish as to think it does not matter if they are thrown out of the car through the windscreen and torn to bits on the road in front of another car, or land on the bonnet, and think that no one else will be involved. That is rubbish, and the sooner the House says so, the better.

9.6 p.m.

Mr. Peter Temple-Morris: Although I speak regularly on transport matters, I rise on this issue subjectively in the spirit of a convert, if not, the House will be relieved to know, with the passion of a convert, in the sense that, as the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) recently reminded me, although I had not forgotten, I voted against the compulsory use of seat belts on the last occasion. In 1976 I even sat through long debates upon public lending right and other matters whilst my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) was speaking at considerable length before the seat belts debate was reached, in order to vote against the Bill.
I principally rise subjectively to record my personal stand, my support for the Bill, and my congratulations to the Government on bringing it forward. I wish they had done so sooner. That is a valid criticism that should be made against them. I also rise to record my disappointment that the Opposition Front Bench,


with whom I agree on almost everything, should on this occasion not be in full agreement with me and certain of my hon. Friends. I nevertheless congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Fowler) on his excellent debating speech, even if it was not in the right direction.
I originally thought that voluntary persuasion would suffice. It has not worked, with due deference to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Clitheroe (Mr. Waddington), although a great deal of money has been spent. For me the substantive arguments are that it is beyond dispute that the measure will save lives and serious injury. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield spoke of deaths and narrowed it down. He completely ignored the 32,000 serious injuries. That is beyond dispute, and it has been conceded by my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield.
The general accident rates are all very well. We know that Britain is doing a good job and that the rate in France is dreadful. But we are not dealing with general accident rates; we are dealing with serious injury and death, and that is what we want to stop by this measure, as individual Members of Parliament, on a free vote. It is a matter of common sense that it is safer to wear a seat belt. Figures can be argued up hill and down dale but we know perfectly well that if we wear our seat belts we are safer.
We have a heavy individual responsibility in the exercise of this vote. We should measure and consider that carefully. It is a bipartisan matter. A certain amount of"this side and that side"has crept into the debate, but on both sides of the House we have considered the question objectively.
There is the argument about personal liberty and individual choice. It has not been sufficiently emphasised, but we are not, by the measure, preventing anyone from doing anything. The right hon. Member for Down, South mentioned cigarette smoking. We were left with the picture that if we banned this and that everything would be much healthier, the Health Service would be saved money and so on. We are not preventing anyone from driving. We are merely advising someone to strap on a belt. If it is a challenge to civil liberty, it is extremely limited.
I greatly enjoyed the speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Grieve). He was in good form, but I wish that he had applied his rhetoric to a more deserving issue. I cannot stand strapping on the miserable belt but realise that it is necessary that I and others wear it. There can be exemptions for people with phobias. It would be simple for a person with a phobia to sit in the back seat. The more who do so, the better.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell) mentioned the affect on third parties. Anyone who has dealt with personal injury cases in court well knows that in an accident after impact a lot more can happen, not only to other vehicles but to pedestrians. The better control that one retains of a vehicle, the more that can be avoided.
One of the fallacies in the argument of the right hon. Member for Down, South was the question of children. Parents can be complacent and careless in not telling their children to wear seat belts. The hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) said that he had not told the person with him, who was seriously injured, to wear his seat belt. Many parents do not tell children and young people travelling in the front seat to wear seat belts.
On the arguments of principle, it is a question of balance. That was well covered by the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Magee). We should adopt a balanced approach rather than waxing a little bit strongly and fighting the Second World War all over again.
We have heard a great deal on two subsidiary arguments concerning enforcement. The British people are generally law-abiding, and the foreign experience is overwhelming. My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield said that enforcement would be difficult, especially at night and on motorways, but he went on to say that in France the law did not work until it was enforced, and we must be objective. It is most important to remember that the public will see the sense of the legislation. That is evident from opinion polls. I am sure that the law will be obeyed.
The relationship of the police and public goes much deeper than mere seat


belt legislation. Spot fines, general enforcement and police relations go way beyond it. If wearing seat belts is made compulsory, I cannot see that it will be a great problem for the police force. It has its problems, and we must deal with those in an imaginative and general way, but it is a gross overstatement to say that this matter has any bearing on such problems.

9.14 p.m.

Mr. Roger Moate: I mean no disrespect to any hon. Member when I say that the House has heard no new arguments tonight. The speeches, the responses and even the interventions have been predictable. But in many ways the debate has not concerned the arguments about the Bill. A Second Reading is a practical occasion on which the House concerns itself with the prospects for the Bill. The House has been here before and heard all the arguments. On 1 March 1976 the House gave a Second Reading to an almost identical Bill to this by a majority of 110. Now we are concerned with the prospects for the current Bill. To bring in a Bill of this kind on 22 March in the dying days of the Parliament—even if the Parliament were to continue for some months—means that it is most unlikely that it will make progress.
We welcome the efforts of the Secretary of State, but we must say that the efforts on the other side of the argument by the Leader of the House can only be regarded as a cynical manipulation of the business of the House for the sake of his own private prejudices.
There is little prospect of the Bill making progress, so my concern is for the chances of a similar Bill getting on to the statute book in the future. Hon. Members may suspect that I am a little disappointed at the attitude of my hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench in that they have indicated, as Conservative spokesmen, that they are not in favour of seat belts legislation. What, then, is the prospect of a Conservative Government introducing a Bill of this kind?
I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Fowler), or whoever occupies his position in the future, will be persuaded, as previous Conservative spokesmen have been, of

the need for compulsory seat belt wearing. I remind hon. Members of what may have been a conversion of my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) in 1973, when he made clear in a statement that he conceded that the public accepted the need for compulsion and that the chief officers of police accepted that legislation in this form was inevitable. The matter then went to the House of Lords and was accepted by the Conservative spokesmen there. When the Labour Government reintroduced the Bill later in 1974 the Conservative spokesman at that time officially welcomed the seat belts clause and no less a person that my noble Friend Lord Hailsham voted in support of compulsion.
Even if the Bill fails on this occasion, as I fear it must, I hope that a future Conservative Government will introduce such legislation. Of course, they will introduce it on a free vote, but the House has already demonstrated that it is overwhelmingly in favour of the principle. This is largely because of the overwhelming acceptance on both sides of the argument that whatever the differences of principle on the question of freedom, and so on, there would be a substantial saving of life and limb. That is one clear point that has come through in almost every speech. Even my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell), one of the most determined opponents of the legislation, putting his own interpretation on the figures, conceded that 250 lives a year could be saved. He thought that an insignificant figure. I do not agree. The forecasts of possible saving of life and limb are of such a magnitude that even a considerable error in those estimates would still provide a considerable saving.
If 250 lives a year could be saved, that would justify compulsion. This is a question of numbers. If the numbers were few, perhaps one could not justify this extra restraint—and restraint it is—but I do not believe that the extra restriction involved in simply putting on a seat belt involves a more valuable principle than the principle of life itself. I cannot understand why so many hon. Members accept that it should be the law to have seat belts fitted into cars and yet cannot concede that it is worth making that extra effort to compel people to use the belt, thereby saving several hundred lives a year.
Many fine points of argument have been put, for example, that it is not the same as the wearing of hard hats on a construction site. However the law was devised in the first place, they are worn to protect the workmen and that is why the wearing of them is compulsory. Why are car seat belts different from a belt in an aeroplane and the enforcement of so many health and safety at work rules? We have gone so far as to enforce the fitting of seat belts in cars, yet we have refused to take the step which would save hundreds of lives every year.
I conclude by recalling the speech that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) made on 1 March 1976. He said that he was opposed to the compulsory wearing of seat belts until he went to the Department of Transport and became responsible for road safety. After that, he saw the necessity for the legislation.
It is because the House and the Government are responsible for road safety that I believe the legislation is necessary. It is possible to reduce the appalling slaughter on the roads, and we should be neglecting our duty if we failed to take this opportunity to save lives—perhaps 1,000 lives and 10,000 serious injuries a year. It would be the most effective way of saving lives. It is a simple, practical step and there is nothing complicated or difficult about it.
I believe not only that the House should give an overwhelming majority to the measure but, more importantly, that it should bring pressure to bear to ensure that, if future legislation is needed, it is brought in at the beginning of a Session and not at the end. In that way we can forget the argument that has gone on for so many years and try to reduce the slaughter on the roads.

9.21 p.m.

Mr. George Younger: I should like to begin by reiterating what several hon. Members from both sides of the House have said. It was a great pleasure to hear the speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Clitheroe (Mr. Waddington). He made an excellent speech—which came as no surprise. It is good to see him back, and we hope that he will continue to contribute to debates. I am certain that he will. I

appreciated particularly the remarks that he made about a great friend of many of us, his predecessor Mr. David Walder. I worked closely with Mr. Walder on defence matters for a number of years. He was one of the nicest people that it has ever been my privilege to know in the House.
Like all other hon. Members, I shall express my own view on the matter. I am glad to give a personal view. I shall not conceal from the House the fact that I have found it difficult to make up my mind on the issue. It is not an easy issue, and there are extremely powerful arguments on both sides. Therefore, I have done my best to listen to the debate and to weigh up arguments.
Both sides of the issue have respected the views of the other. I respect the views of the Minister and those hon. Members who believe that the Bill should be introduced. It was introduced with sincerity, and the arguments were put clearly. On the other hand, those hon. Members who believe that it is not the right measure have a case which it would be wrong not to respect and listen to. I shall try to sum up the main arguments of substance, which are reasonably clear and short.
I am a total and absolute believer in the use of seat belts. I always—and I mean always—wear a seat belt and I always require my front-seat passenger to wear one. It is a great assistance to safety. However, that is not what we are discussing—that is common ground between both sides of the argument. We are discussing whether, accepting all that, it is right, necessary and proper that we should make it compulsory to wear seat belts and that it should be a criminal offence, albeit a slight one, to fail to wear them.
I hope that the Secretary of State understands that for those of us who have doubts about the Bill the question of exemptions will be extremely important in the later stages of the ligislation. Many people, drivers and others, find it intolerable, difficult, unpleasant, uncomfortable and upsetting to use seat belts. I confess that I do not understand their reasons. I find seat belts convenient and comfortable, but others find them awkward, and in Committee we shall have to probe carefully what is meant by the reference to a doctor's certificate and what guidance


doctors will be given about what will be considered a reason for being excused from having to wear seat belts. I believe that there will be a number of cases in which it will be extremely difficult to describe the reason as medical.
The Minister intends to introduce details of exemptions in a statutory instrument or order under the Bill, but it will be unsatisfactory for us to be asked to vote on the exemptions in a block decision after one and a half hour's debate, probably after 10 o'clock at night. We shall have the option only of accepting or rejecting the whole package.
I hope that the Secretary of State will come to the Committee stage with a clear list of detailed exemptions and, if possible, a draft of the draft order so that we may thrash it out bit by bit.
Unless the right hon. Gentleman does that, it will not be good enough for the House to have to accept or reject a whole package in which many details may not be acceptable to some hon. Members. There are important difficulties. For example, my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) raised the question of the difficulties faced by driving instructors. They have not been covered in previous attempts at legislation, and they are important.
Two key arguments have to be decided by every hon. Member before he votes. The first argument is that because the statistics demonstrate that using a seat belt saves lives we must compel everyone to wear them. I respect the views of those who use that argument, and it has been useful to have the many representations that most hon. Members have had from members of the medical profession giving us the benefit of their direct experience, which cannot be taken lightly. They ought to know that hon. Members have taken their views seriously.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) does not regard the conclusions drawn from the statistics as entirely convincing and the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) takes the same line. I believe that many of the estimates are on the extravagant side, but I accept that there is an important saving of life by the wearing of seat belts. I do not base any

part of my argument on disputing or minimising that fact.
The financial argument is that it costs the community a great deal of money to treat road accident victims. One point not made in the debate is that, as I understand it, when an accident victim has to attend an NHS hospital, that hospital has to be reimbursed, at least to some extent, through the driver's insurance policy, for the cost of looking after him. Though it is still a cost, it does not necessarily fall on the public purse. I believe that this is what happens in most cases and I hope that the Minister will confirm it.
If we accept the argument that because lives are being saved it follows that we are justified in making it compulsory for everybody to use seat belts, I suggest that we are embarking on a slippery slope. If the only argument for compelling people to use seat belts is to save lives, we should be passing a law making it illegal to cross the road. That is an extremely dangerous activity, which accounts for a large number of road casualties every year. I do not know what the exact figure is but it is large.
It would be logical to say that if we believe that saving lives is the only criterion, crossing the road should be made a crime. That smoking costs lives cannot be denied, yet I have heard no one suggesting that we make smoking a crime. There is also the question of dangerous sports. Again, if the criterion is to save lives and prevent injury, we ought to curtail dangerous sports.

Mr. Jessel: Does my hon. Friend accept that wearing a seat belt does not stop one going where one wants to go, whereas if one is prevented from crossing the road, or from smoking or from mountaineering, one is being prevented from doing what one wants to do? Is there not a difference?

Mr. Younger: That is a good point. My point is that if saving lives is everything in this argument, the activities that I have mentioned ought to be made illegal, in order to save lives. It is an argument that needs to be weighed, but it is not crucial.
The second argument is much more important and is different from other arguments that we are considering. I


accept that most people who wear seat belts are safer than those who do not, but there are people who believe that they are alive today because they were not wearing seat belts at the time of an accident. They may not be right, but they believe that they are.
I was impressed by the speech made by the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson), who told us in a very effective way of his being saved because he was wearing a seat belt. He is with us today because of that. Without wishing to detract from that, I must tell him that my hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Gray) believes—he may well be right—that he is with us because, when he was involved in an accident, he was not wearing a seat belt.
Although the majority of people who wear seat belts are safer, there are some who are not. This introduces another set of calculations and criteria which we must take into account and which emphasise the difference between seat belts and crash helmets for motor cyclists. There may be people who argue that there are occasions when it is safer for a motor cyclist not to wear a crash helmet. I am not aware of such an argument, and unless I were convinced I would not believe that it could convincingly be made. To my mind, that is the difference in the argument about the wearing of crash helmets, since it is very nearly—as near as one can get—self-evident that one is at least marginally safer when wearing a crash helmet.
But let us consider some other examples. There has already been reference to the requirement, with criminal penalty attached, that one shall not run a car on the road without an MoT certificate if its age calls for the test. Moreover, it is wrong, and subject to penalty, to drive a car on the road without effective brakes.
Some would say that the same principle applies, but it is not the same principle because there are no circumstances in which it can be safer to drive a car with no brakes or with defective brakes than to drive it with proper brakes. There is a complete difference in degree there.
Several hon. Members have spoken of the requirement to wear seat belts in an aircraft. Of course that is so, but the

difference is that it is not a criminal offence to fail to do so. Again, therefore, there is a difference between what happens in that context and what is proposed under the Bill.
We should face the consequences of what is here proposed and be clear about them in our minds. What happens if a person wearing a seat belt as required under the Bill has an accident and is killed but, in the opinion of his wife, family and dependants, his life would have been saved had he not been wearing a seat belt? That is not at all fanciful. Such an event may well happen in many cases already. What is the position of the bereaved family? Are they able to claim any redress from the State if they believe that the father wore his seat belt, being required to do so under the Bill, and this led to his death? That may well happen in a number of cases, and we should think carefully about the effect of what we are doing.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: Since my hon. Friend is giving thought to the effects on other people, will he take it from me that in many of our hospitals men and women spend their lives looking after frontal lobotomy cases, doing the frightening job of caring for people who did not wear a seat belt and collided with the windscreen, being reduced to gibbering idiots as a result? My hon. Friend should consider the position of those people who are affected as well.

Mr. Younger: With respect to my hon. Friend, I have indeed considered them and I have covered that matter already in what I have said.
I wish to conclude now, and I think that it would not be right to make this speech without being constructive as well. In my view, it is both desirable and necessary that we should look at the positive side. Seat belt design has been mentioned already by several hon. Members. We have a long way to go before seat belt design is satisfactory, and I hope that the Department will do all that it can to put pressure on the manufacturers to that end.
Secondly, I am all in favour of the maximum number of requirements in the construction of motor cars with reference to seat belts. Seat belts should be built in, there should be flashing lights to show whether the belt is fitted on, and, if


necessary, even noises produced by an instrument in the fascia board to warn people and to encourage them to use the belt. There should be an extension of the penalties under insurance policies if those who have accidents were not wearing seat belts. The rule which is sometimes already adopted of applying penalties in the compensation should be extended. Certainly, there will be need for continued advertising and persuasion even if the Bill should go through.
I have not found it easy to make up my mind. I accept that there are great advantages in the wearing of seat belts, and I believe that everybody should always wear them, but many hon. Members have made a powerful case for saying that there would be an intrusion here upon individual freedom by the requirement on everybody to wear a seat belt, making it a criminal offence not to do so with a penalty of £50, and there are cases, however few they may be—I believe that they are a significant number—where wearing a seat belt is harmful to the life and health of driver or passenger.
This is a requirement which we should not lightly impose upon people who, for whatever reason and however misguided we may think them, do not wish to wear a seat belt. I shall continue to wear a seat belt, but I hope that the House will not make it compulsory and a crime not to do so.

9.40 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. John Horam): First, I say in response to comments made by the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Fowler) and the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) that this is a Government Bill. My right hon. Friend and I believe that the Bill deals with an important issue. That is why we have brought the Bill to the House. That is why my right hon. Friend opened the debate and why I am replying. On an issue of this sort we felt it right to have a free vote. There will be a free vote for Labour Members, as I understand there will be for Opposition Members. I thought that I should make those matters plain to avoid any misunderstandings about the position hon. Members will face when they go into the Lobbies to vote at 10 o'clock.
Before I come to the central issues for and against the Bill, I shall take up one or two remarks made by hon. Members on both sides of the House.
A number of hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield, referred to consultation. They fairly said that it is three years since a similar measure came before the House to receive its Second Reading. That was a Bill not dissimilar from the measure before us. They fairly asked what consultation had been undertaken on exemptions, for example. A great deal of consultation has been undertaken. The hon. Gentleman will readily be able to ascertain the extent of the consultation if he wishes.
For example, there has been considerable consultation with the police on exemptions and enforcement. We have talked extensively with medical authorities on a number of issues. Our talks have concerned not merely the principles of medical exemption and who should be exempt, but the mechanics of the certificate, the fees and all the details that it is necessary to consider and which legitimately concern hon. Members. We have also entered into consultation on children and how we should treat them. My right hon. Friend made plain the Government's attitude to children in terms of the Bill. We have also talked to our own examiners, who have problems with a Bill of this sort. Therefore, my right hon. Friend was able to make a clear statement, though necessarily brief as there was a great deal to say on other matters and it was a Second Reading debate, on the broad approach that we have adopted to exemptions.
I note the remarks of the hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) about our proceedings in Committee and how they might proceed. I am not able to say how we shall progress from this stage of the Bill's passage, but we shall take into account the argument that he has advanced.
We decided that it was right to introduce what is in effect an enabling Bill, followed by the business end, to quote the right hon. Member for Down, South, in the form of regulations. That decision was taken for good reasons. We shall have a degree of flexibility. Other countries have found it sensible to make small


alterations to exemptions from time to time.
I do not believe that it would have been right to go any further than the fairly extensive though informal consultation in which we engaged. There was clearly no legislative backing for any of the consultation. Consultation took place on the premise that there would be a Bill. Secondly, it would have been discourteous to the House to go too far with consultations before there was clear legal backing for them. Therefore, we have made no final decisions on exemptions, for example. However, we have done a considerable amount of essential spade work. It is now a matter of putting the coping stone on to the views that we have formed after taking into account the views that are expressed in Committee.
A number of hon. Members have talked about enforcement. It has featured fairly extensively in the speeches of those who are opposed to the Bill. The basic premise of those who argue that enforcement will be a problem is that many people will not obey the law. I do not believe that that will be so. In other countries where there has been an approach similar to the one that we intend to adopt—for example, France, New Zealand, Australia and Sweden—high levels of belt wearing have already occurred. About 80 per cent. have worn belts without any excessive enforcement effort.

Dr. M. S. Miller: Will there be a period of grace to allow people not accustomed to wearing seat belts to get used to wearing them without the police pushing for them to be worn?

Mr. Horam: The answer is"No ". There has already been extensive consultation. The Bill is being discussed on Second Reading. It will go into Committee, and if it passes through the House and is enacted regulations will be introduced. If there are those who are not aware of exactly what is involved after all the talk that has taken place, they must be living in a different country.
Does the Bill pose unique difficulties in the general area of road traffic legislation? I take the point that it is difficult to tell whether someone is wearing a seat belt at night. It is equally difficult for the police to spot whether someone is driving when over the drink limit, or

whether a car has taken an MoT test. Enforcement difficulties are inescapably linked with road traffic legislation. It is for individual chief officers to decide how they will handle matters. The police do not pretend that it will be easy to enforce this measure. I concede that. None the less, the majority of police representatives are in favour of compulsion. They must have weighed up this matter and come to that conclusion. They remain in favour of compulsion.

Mr. Lawrence: Does the Minister imply that the police will stop a vehicle and arrest somebody for the offence of not wearing a seat belt only if the vehicle has already been involved in an accident or other incident, as normally applies in drink-driving cases?

Mr. Horam: I said nothing about that, as the hon. Gentleman is aware. The police have said that they would enforce the law. They have not seen particular difficulties in this problem.
The hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield made—fairly—an important point. He referred to the relationship between the police and the public flowing from any enforcement difficulty. In our discussions the police did not raise this as an issue that concerned them. Indeed, I suspect that they are caused far more trouble by existing problems, such as speed limits. I expect that there are many more difficulties in their relationships with the public in enforcing matters of that kind than they might encounter over a seat belt measure which the majority feel to be in their own best interests.
Secondly, the police have weighed the matter up. They remain in favour of compulsion. The majority of police representatives are in favour of compulsion. The hon. Gentleman made a great deal of that point in his opening remarks. He is trying to be more royal than the king. We should take the view of the police on this matter. They are clearly in favour of compulsion.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: rose—

Mr. Horam: I have already given way twice. I have little time. I deliberately shortened my remarks to allow a number of hon. Gentlemen to speak both for and against the Bill. I must press on.

Mr. Norman Fowler: The Minister mentioned police views. I spoke to the


Association of Chief Police Officers this morning. Its information to me was that it was apprehensive about compulsion on the grounds of enforcement and exemptions. That does not tie in with the general blanket assurance that the Under-Secretary is giving to the House now.

Mr. Horam: I am not giving a blanket assurance. I accept the point that the police made, that enforcement would not be easy. That is plain. I said that I did not believe that it would be as difficult as the Opposition said.
I quote relevant experience on the matter. One of the few international conferences on this matter was held in Melbourne in 1977. For seven or eight years, the wearing of seat belts has been compulsory in many Australian states. Mr. Butler, the commissioner for motor transport in New South Wales, speaking of his experience over seven or eight years, on a regulation to enforce compulsory seat belt wearing, said:
 Enforcement has not turned out to be a problem.
He went on to say:
 This is, in fact, a regulation with a very high degree of self enforcement.
That is likely to be the case in this instance. I do not expect the problems mentioned by the hon. Gentleman to arise.
The central argument against the Bill was spelt out with characteristic cogency by the right hon. Member for Down, South. I quote not from the speech that he made this evening but from the speech that he made three years ago, on Second Reading. He said then:
 The principle at stake is very precise. It is whether it should be a criminal offence for a person to neglect or to risk his safety when, by so doing, he does not involve the physical, personal safety of others."—[Official Report, 1 March 1976; Vol. 906, c. 949.]
I do not think that can be improved upon as the statement of the principal opposition to the Bill. But the statement is not quite precise enough, for the fact is that the safety of others may be involved. If a person has an accident and is not wearing a seat belt, he is more likely to be flung through the windscreen or incapacitated through injury. If that is so, he is less likely to retain some kind of control over the car.
This is not the main argument that I would deploy against the right hon. Gentleman's principle but it is an important argument, for in rather over one case out of 10 there is not one collision but two. Wearing a seat belt may therefore help a person to avoid, or lessen the impact of, the second collision, and thus save the life of someone totally uninvolved in the first accident.
Some caution is therefore necessary in stating the libertarian argument. None the less, it is an important one and it must be answered. I believe that the essence of the answer is that there is not just one principle at stake here but two, and the second principle is the preservation of human life. We must choose between these two principles, and, as in any choice, we are bound to measure as objectively as we can the relative weight that we attach to each of these principles in the particular circumstances that we have here. That is how, in practice, we decide between conflicting arguments, in this field as well as in any other. It is when we look at it in this light, comparing the relative strengths of the argument, that we see the case for the Bill and the weakness of the personal freedom argument.
The right to drive a car unbelted is scarcely one of the fundamental freedoms. It is not a freedom to be set alongside freedom of speech or free elections. It is actually a minor appendage of another freedom—the freedom to drive a motor car. That itself is a freedom that, for most people, has arrived only in comparatively recent times. It is one which, as we have often said in transport debates, is very highly valued. To be asked to make that wider freedom to drive a car dependent and conditional upon fastening a belt across one is surely not to ask very much.
The other libertarian argument is that one encroachment will lead to another—that before long we shall not allow mountaineers to climb until they have been safely anchored to the top, or that we shall prohibit smoking. I do not believe that those are serious possibilities, and I do not think that hon. Members think so, either. Quite apart from any other consideration, to regulate in these areas of smoking, sport, and so on, is to regulate people's pleasures and enjoyment. The Bill is really not the herald


of some new era of prohibition, or something of that kind. To claim that it is is really to claim too much.
I submit, therefore, that the infringement of personal liberty brought about by the Bill is small. Indeed, one is well justified in using the word"trivial ". It is not unprecedented in legislation and it is not the precursor of some major invasion of individual freedom. The arguments in favour of the Bill are straight forward.
About 60 per cent. of all car accidents are frontal collisions. In such a collision, a car comes to a halt in perhaps one-tenth of a second, but an unbelted occupant continues to move forward at about the previous speed of the car until he or she hits the windscreen, or some other part of the car, or is ejected. If the speed of the car is 30 m.p.h., such a movement is equivalent to jumping from a second storey window on to the pavement. That is the effect of the person hitting the windscreen. A seat belt meets the problem in a most simple and direct way by holding the occupant to the seat.
How effective a seat belt is can be judged by comparison of accidents when seat belts are worn with those accidents when they are not. We are not talking about hypotheses; we are talking about fact. These facts show that when a seat belt is worn the number of deaths is 50 per cent. less, and the number of serious injuries 45 per cent. less.
In other countries where seat belts have been introduced, the saving of life has always been substantial and frequently of the proportions that I have stated. If one applies this proportion to the number of front-seat occupants who are killed every year, and who were not wearing seat belts, one arrives at a figure of a possible 1,000 lives a year saved. That is the figure that has been extensively quoted.
Naturally, it is right to claim that this figure is based on a wearing rate of 100 per cent. Clearly the rate will not be 100 per cent.; it will be less than that. When based on the figures that have been achieved in other countries, of approximately 45 per cent., one is talking about the saving of lives in the region of 800 people per year. Even if we arbitrarily halve that figure, as my hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) suggested,

we would still be talking about a truly enormous saving of lives.
It is right to be cautious about estimates of this kind, and the right hon. Member for Down, South urged us to be cautious, though curiously enough he was rather cavalier in the way that he used statistics, because he actually quoted motor cycle casualties without mentioning the fact that the number of motor cycles ridden has increased very substantially during the period about which he was talking—in fact, the number has risen by 50 per cent. in the two years after 1975.
I am quite unable to accept that legislation on motor cyclists' crash helmets and drinking and driving has had no beneficial effect. I accept that the estimate that we made at the time has not been fulfilled, but the fact is that 120 lives per year have been saved since the wearing of crash helmets was made compulsory. I must tell the right hon. Gentleman that our calculation is—though certainly the effect is wearing off since the passing of the legislation by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) all those years ago—that the number of lives saved has been about 5,000 as a consequence of the drink-driving legislation. Certainly we can go into those figures in detail if hon. Members so wish, but that is where we rest our case.
When injuries occur in a head-on collision they are very often extremely severe. It is therefore interesting to note that indications are that seat belts are most effect in reducing the most severe injuries. In particular, they are most effective in reducing head injuries. The saving of life and limb is, therefore, unquestionably high, and if there were no other reason for the Bill than that, it would be amply justified.
But there is a further argument in favour of the Bill, and that is the consequential savings to the police, the emergency services, and the National Health Service. My right hon. Friend said that the savings to the National Health Service could be about £50 million per year. Even in these days of inflation and funny money that is not a negligible sum, and in a week that began with a debate on public expenditure it is not inappropriate to close with a social measure that is absolutely costless.
It is not just the money that is important, but the nature of the demands that car accidents make on the NHS. The accidents that occur are severe and stretch the NHS at its most vulnerable point.
The Bill is comparable with others in the area of health and safety legislation. The infringement of personal liberty that is involved, though real, is tiny. To suggest that the Bill opens the door to major invasion of personal liberty is surely farfetched. The Bill will save hundreds from death and thousands from injury, disfigurement

and disablement. It will save literally tens of thousands of families from the pain and grief that these accidents cause.

For these reasons, the Bill has been described by the Medical Council on Accident Prevention as a major piece of public health legislation. I hope that the House will indicate its support in no uncertain manner.

Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time:—

The House divided: Ayes 244, Noes 147.

Division No. 1041]
AYES
10.00 p.m.


Abse, Leo
Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Jones, Barry (East Flint)


Anderson, Donald
Duffy, A. E. P.
Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Dunlop, John
Kilroy-Silk, Robert


Armstrong, Ernest
Dunnett, Jack
Knight, Mrs Jill


Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)
Dykes, Hugh
Knox, David


Atkinson, Norman (H'gey, Tott'ham)
Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Lamborn, Harry


Baker, Kenneth
Elliott, Sir William
Lamont, Norman


Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)
Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scun)
Latham, Arthur (Paddington)


Bates, Alt
Ennals, Rt Hon David
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)


Bean, R. E.
Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)
Litterick, Tom


Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood
Fletcher, Alex (Edinburgh N)
Loveridge, John


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Fletcher, L. R. (Ilkeston)
Luard, Evan


Bennett, Dr Reginald (Fareham)
Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)


Bishop, Rt Hon Edward
Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)
Mabon, Rt Hon Dr J. Dickson


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford &amp; St)
McCartney, Hugh


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)
McCrindle, Robert


Boothroyd, Miss Betty
Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald
McCusker, H.


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.
MacGregor, John


Bottomley, Peter
Gardiner, George (Reigate)
Maclennan, Robert


Braine, Sir Bernard
Garrett, John (Norwich S)
Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)


Bray, Dr Jeremy
Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)
Magee, Bryan


Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)
George, Bruce
Marks, Kenneth


Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)
Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John
Mason, Rt Hon Roy


Bryan, Sir Paul
Goodhart, Philip
Mates, Michael


Buchan, Norman
Gould, Bryan
Maynard, Miss Joan


Buchanan, Richard
Graham, Ted
Meyer, Sir Anthony


Buchanan-Smith, Alick
Grant, George (Morpeth)
Millan, Rt Hon Bruce


Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)
Grant, John (Islington C)
Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)


Cant, R. B.
Griffiths, Eldon
Mills, Peter


Carmichael, Nell
Grocott, Bruce
Miscampbell, Norman


Carter, Ray
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)
Moate, Roger


Cartwright, John
Hannam, John
Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)


Castle, Rt Hon Barbara
Harrison, Col Sir Harwood (Eye)
Morton, George


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Harrison, Rt Hon Walter
Moyle, Rt Hon Roland


Clemitson, Ivor
Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy
Mudd, David


Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)
Hayhoe, Barney
Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick


Cohen, Stanley
Hayman, Mrs Helene
Neave, Airey


Colquhoun, Ms Maureen
Healey, Rt Hon Denis
Newens, Stanley


Concannon, Rt Hon John
Heffer. Eric S.
Newton, Tony


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Henderson, Douglas
Noble, Mike


Cope, John
Heseitine, Michael
Ogden, Eric


Corbett, Robin
Higgins, Terence L.
O'Halloran, Michael


Corrie, John
Hodgson, Robin
Onslow, Cranley


Costain, A. P.
Hooley, Frank
Orbach, Maurice


Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
Horam, John
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley


Crowther, Stan (Rotherham)
Hordern, Peter
Owen, Rt Hon Dr David


Cryer, Bob
Huckfield, Les
Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)


Cunningham, Dr J. (Whiteh)
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)
Park, George


Dalyell, Tam
Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)
Parker, John


Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)
Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)
Parkinson, Cecil


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
James, David
Pavitt, Laurie


Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)
Jay, Rt Hon Douglas
Penhaligon, David


Deakins, Eric
Jenkin, Rt Hon P. (Wanst'd&amp;W'df'd)
Perry, Ernest


Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Phipps, Dr Colin


Dean, Paul (N Somerset)
Jessel, Toby
Prentice, Rt Hon Reg


de Freitas, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
John, Brynmor
Price, C. (Lewisham W)


Dell, Rt Hon Edmund
Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)
Price, David (Eastleigh)


Dormand, J. D.
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Radice, Giles


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Jones, Alec (Rhondda)
Raison, Timothy




Rathbone, Tim
Speed, Keith
Watkins, David


Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)
Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)
Watkinson, John


Raid, George
Stallard, A. W.
Watt, Hamish


Rhodes James, R.
Stanley, John
Weetch, Ken


Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Steel, Rt Hon David
Wellbeloved, James


Robertson, George (Hamilton)
Stewart, Rt Hon Donald
White, Frank R. (Bury)


Rodgers, Rt Hon William (Stockton)
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)
Whitehead, Phillip


Rooker, J. W.
Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)
Whitlock, William


Roper, John
Stoddart, David
Wiggin, Jerry


Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)
Stott, Roger
Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)


Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)
Strang, Gavin
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)


Sainsbury, Tim
Strauss, Rt Hon G. R.
Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)


Sandelson, Neville
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley
Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)


Shaw, Arnold (llford South)
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)
Wilson, William (Coventry SE)


Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert
Temple-Morris, Peter
Wise, Mrs Audrey


Shepherd, Colin
Thomas, Mike (Newcastle E)
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)
Young, David (Bolton E)


Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)
Tilley, John
Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)


Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)
Tomlinson, John



Sillars, James
Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Silverman, Julius
Vaughan, Dr Gerard
Mr. John Evans and


Smith, Timothy John (Ashfield)
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)
Mr. James Tinn.


Snape, Peter
Ward, Michael




NOES



Aitken, Jonathan
Grieve, Percy
Nelson, Anthony


Alison, Michael
Grimond, Rt Hon J.
Neubert, Michael


Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)
Grist, Ian
Osborn, John


Banks, Robert
Grylls, Michael
Page, John (Harrow West)


Bell, Ronald
Hamilton, Archibald (Epsom &amp; Ewell)
Pattie, Geoffrey


Benyon, W.
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Percival, Ian


Bidwell, Sydney
Hawkins, Paul
Pink, R. Bonner


Biggs-Davison, John
Hicks, Robert
Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch


Body, Richard
Holland, Philip
Rees, Peter (Dover &amp; Deal)


Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)
Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)
Hunt, John (Wirral)
Renton, Tim (Mid-Sussex)


Bradford, Rev Robert
Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)
Ridley, Hon Nicholas


Brocklebank-Fowler, C.
Hurd, Douglas
Ridsdale, Julian


Brooke, Hon Peter
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Rifkind, Malcolm


Brotherton, Michael
Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)


Bruce-Gardyne, John
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Ross, William (Londonderry)


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith
Royle, Sir Anthony


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton &amp; P)
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)


Carlisle, Mark
Kerr, Russell
Shelton, William (Streatham)


Clark, William (Croydon S)
Kilfedder, James
Shersby, Michael


Clegg, Walter
Kimball, Marcus
Silvester, Fred


Craig, Rt Hon W. (Belfast E)
Langford-Holt, Sir John
Skeet, T. H. H.


Crowder, F. P.
Lawrence, Ivan
Skinner, Dennis


Dodsworth, Geoffrey
Lawson, Nigel
Smith, Dudley (Warwick)


Drayson, Burnaby
Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Spicer, Michael (S Worcester)


Durant, Tony
Lewis, Arthur (Newham N)
Sproat, Iain


Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Stanbrook, Ivor


Emery, Peter
Lloyd, Ian
Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)


English, Michael
Luce, Richard
Stradling Thomas, J.


Eyre, Reginald
MacCormick, Iain
Tebbit, Norman


Fairbairn, Nicholas
Macfarlane, Neil
Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)


Fairgrieve, Russell
Mackay, Andrew (Stechford)
Torney, Tom


Farr, John
Madden, Max
Townsend, Cyril D.


Fell, Anthony
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)
Urwin, T. W.


Finsberg, Geoffrey
Mather, Carol
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Fisher, Sir Nigel
Maude, Angus
Viggers, Peter


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Mawby, Ray
Waddington, David


Fookes, Miss Janet
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Wakeham, John


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Mayhew, Patrick
Wall, Patrick


Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)
Walters, Dennis


Fox, Marcus
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Weatherill, Bernard


Freud, Clement
Molyneaux, James
Wells, John


Fry, Peter
Monro, Hector
Welsh, Andrew


Ginsburg, David
Montgomery, Fergus
Winterton, Nicholas


Glyn, Dr Alan
Moore, John (Croydon C)
Wood, Rt Hon Richard


Goodhew, Victor
More, Jasper (Ludlow)
Younger, Hon George


Goodlad, Alastair
Morgan, Geraint



Gorst, John
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)
Morris, Michael (Northampton S)
Mr. Patrick Cormack and


Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)
Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)
Mr. Nick Budgen.


Gray, Hamish

Questions accordingly agreed to.

Bill read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

FIREARM CERTIFICATES

10.14 p.m.

Mr. John Farr: I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Firearms (Variation of Fees) Order 1979 (S. I., 1979, No. 86), dated 30 January 1979, a copy of which was laid before this House on 7 February, be annulled.

Mr. Speaker: I remind the House that the debate must end at 11.30 p.m. Already six hon. Members, in addition to the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr), have indicated to me that they hope to speak.

Mr. Farr: It may be as well if I begin by telling the House about those who are interested in shooting and those who take part in the pastime. Many people think that those who shoot come from certain sections of society.
A recent pilot survey of the people who shoot was classified into the 17 generally recognised socio-economic groups. Of these 17 groups, 35·7 per cent., or the biggest sector, were people who were classed in the sociological grouping as skilled manual workers. The next largest, 26 per cent., were intermediate and junior manual workers. The third largest, 14·3 per cent., were professional workers, 13·3 per cent. were employers and managers and the remaining 10 per cent were semi-skilled, or not at present engaged in a viable occupation. This shows that the sport of shooting has widespread application in Britain and that many thousands will be concerned with what we are discussing tonight.
The prayer was laid by my hon. Friends and myself because fees for firearm and shotgun certificates have escalated so much during the past four or five years, particularly since 1975, that considerable unrest has been caused throughout the country. Without going into details of how the fees have increased, it is sufficient to say that the fee for a firearm certificate, which in 1975 was £3·50, will be £18·50 if the order is approved, and the fee for a shotgun certificate, which in 1975 was £1, will be £8·50.
Those are startling increases. A fee which would be appropriate in line with the increase in the cost of living and the index of retail prices would be £8

for a firearm certificate instead of £18·50, and £2·50 for a shotgun certificate instead of £8·50. That is why we have laid the prayer.
A great deal of correspondence has come to my hon. Friends and myself on this subject recently. The figures I have quoted showing the shocking way in which fees have increased are borne out by a written answer given to me by the Home Secretary on 3 May 1978, when he stated that no fees for which he had responsibility had been increased to the same extent as the fees under the Firearms Act 1968. That was a significant admission by the Home Secretary. There are several other fees with which the Home Secretary is concerned, namely, fees under the Aliens Act, which involve a considerable amount of police time, and fees for liquor licences, which again involve much police time in inquiries. There are many other fees with which the Home Secretary is concerned, such as burial fees, which have increased only at the rate of inflation or less.
The Home Secretary issues some licences without charge, and there are circumstances where police time may be considerable but no charge is made. The police are required to inspect and advise retail chemists on the security of drugs. and no charge is made for the appropriate authorisation to possess drugs. No charge is made for police duties in relation to commercial storage of explosives. The police quite rightly spend a considerable amount of time on crime prevention advice, particularly for people wishing to install burglar alarms, and no charge is made for that.
From time to time these regular increases in fees have been questioned in debate. The Government over the past three or four years have given three reasons for these increases: first, that they are necessitated by inflation; secondly, that such fees have been dealt with in the same way as all other fees; and, thirdly, that by virtue of the Public Expenditure and Receipts Act 1968 they were required to increase fees.
I have touched on the savage way that fees have been increased in an unjustified way since 1975, and I have also dealt with the inconsistency, admitted by the Home Secretary, that no other fees have increased at the same rate as firearms


fees. Until recently, the third reason was consistently given by Ministers. In a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments on 27 October 1976 and 3 May 1978, the Under-Secretary of State indicated that the Government were required to increase firearms fees by virtue of section 5 of the Public Expenditure and Receipts Act 1968. In December 1976, the Minister of State said the same thing in another place.
The Home Office now recognises that that Act places no such requirement on the Government, and never has done. In section 5 a number of charges are listed that must be regularly increased, but for that to apply to firearm fees a special amendment would be necessary. I think the Under-Secretary will agree that the Government are not required to take action by that Act.
The level of fees is increasing due to increased costs, but there is considerable room for cost reduction by improving the efficiency of the procedure. There is a teriffic variation among police forces in the cost of the procedure of granting a firearm certificate. Although I am referring specifically to the granting of firearm certificates, what I say applies also to shotgun certificates. Looking at the figures for 1977, one sees that in the metropolitan area the average firearm certificate cost £52·80, and from that high figure it ranges down to £10·41 in Cumbria.
There seem to be tremendous variations in the costings given by different police forces, which I find incomprehensible. If we want to make the system more effective, cheaper for those who have firearms and simpler for the police, could not those who have been checked out and found suitable to hold a firearm certificate automatically qualify to hold a shotgun certificate? A shotgun does not require the standard of responsibility demanded by a rifle, and if someone is qualified to hold a firearm certificate he should be able to hold a shotgun certificate without involving the police in a laborious duplication of checking. Such a dual procedure would save the issuing of 150,000 certificates a year, and that would save the police a great deal of time.
I have another suggestion that the Minister might consider. Driving licences

are now valid until the holder reaches the age of 70. Could not the life of a firearm certificate be increased from three years to five or six years?
How can we improve police efficiency in administering the firearms laws? The police lack direction from the Home Secretary on this issue. Section 55(1) of the Firearms Act 1968 empowers the Home Secretary to make rules to regulate the manner in which chief officers of police carry out their duties under the Act. In the debate on this subject in the Standing Committee in 1978, the Minister said that it was for chief officers of police to determine the best system to operate. In another place the Home Office Minister said that it was up to the police to decide how to use their manpower resources and on the variations between different forces.
If, as it appears, the police are not using their resources in the most efficient way, they should be given guidance by the Home Secretary. It seems from repeated statements in firearms debates that the Home Office and the Home Secretary have almost completely opted out of giving guidance in this matter and are leaving these questions more and more in the hands of the chief officers.
Those who engage in shooting in all its forms—they come from many groups in society—are basically law-abiding people who are anxious to help the police in every way. However, the situation is approaching in which the burden of increased fees is making it very difficult for many of them to continue to possess a shotgun, a rifle or another authorised weapon.
In the 1977 annual reports of the chief officers of police for Devon and Cornwall, Essex, Hampshire, Lincolnshire, Merseyside and Surrey, it was made clear that increased fees accounted for the reduction in the number of firearm and shotgun certificates.
The House has a matter on its hands that requires immediate action from the Government. Some of us are most dissatisfied with the continual rise in firearm fees each year since this Government came into office. Some hon. Members say that the continual rises are allied to the failure of the Government in 1977 to secure the advancement of its Firearms Bill.
Many hon. Members would like answers to a number of questions. Why was the Public Expenditure and Receipts Act 1968 continually and repeatedly used as a justification for the recovery of costs? I have never received a satisfactory reply to the question. Why has the Home Secretary concluded that firearm and shotgun certificate fees should be increased at a rate disproportionate to inflation? Why are services that are provided free to many sections of the community, in respect of other licences and authorisations from the Home Office, charged at a very high rate to those who use firearms?
Why, in the systems and costings evolved by the Home Office, is the charging of police officers' time made as if they were exclusively employed on investigations? Often they are not. Nominal or no fees are charged for the issue of comparable licences, whereas the fireams fees and examinations charges that are made represent the full time of the police officers involved. What steps is the Home Secretary taking to issue guidance to the police about the efficient and cost-effective administration of their systems? Will the Home Secretary now institute an independent inquiry into the appropriate level of fees?
The House is totally dissatisfied with the actions of the Government. Since 1975 they have taken steps to price legal firearm possession out of the reach of many young people. My hon. Friends and I believe that it is wrong that lawful firearm possession should depend more and more on the ability to pay.

10.33 p.m.

Mr. Max Madden: I am glad that the prayer, which I support, offers the opportunity for the House to question the basis of these fees. Last year, the increase in fees was introduced at a time when there was no parliamentary opportunity to ask questions or draw attention to the concern that was felt about the increase. As a result of that, I tabled a number of questions and wrote to the Home Secretary. I was wholly dissatisfied with the replies I received.
In the meantime, I have been paying considerable attention to the issue. I

hope that the Minister will give a fuller explanation of the basis of the charges than we have received hitherto. There are 150,000 people in the United Kingdom holding firearm and shotgun certificates. Many regard the increase in fees over the past few years as a clear pricing policy, initiated very much at the behest of civil servants in the Home Office, and a blatant attempt to control and reduce the number of guns and shotguns.
The proposed fee for a firearm certificate from 1 May is a 15 per cent. increase on last year's figure. The increase for the shotgun certificate fee is between 20 per cent. and 21 per cent., and the increase for dealers is more than 18 per cent. Those figures are well in excess of the movement of inflation over the year.
The hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) made a number of references to charges having been introduced since the Government came to office, but it is important to point out that fees for firearm certificates were first introduced in 1920, admittedly at only five shillings. They remained at that level until 1968, when they were increased to £2·50. They were increased again in 1971 to £3·50, in 1975 to £7, in 1976 to £12 and in 1978 to £16, and the proposed fee from 1 May is £18·50.
I have referred to the sense of grievance and unfairness felt about such increases. There is a feeling that the charges are unfair and unrealistic, certainly in relation to the cost of administration by the police.
Many certificate holders feel that they are being charged for crime prevention advice or inspection and that that does not apply to other people. They feel that they are charged for the time of patrolling officers as though they were exclusively at the service of certificate holders, and, again, this does not apply to others who seek advice and assistance from the police. The holders of certificates believe that they are charged for advice given at police inquiry desks and that this also does not apply to other sections of the community.
I shall not refer to all the anomalies. They are widespread and they lead to the charge that there is no consistency in the application of fees and charges.


Charges are not payable under the Aliens Acts or for licences under the liquor licensing legislation or under the explosives law. I was told by the Home Secretary in reply to a parliamentary question last year that there was no other charge for which the Home Office was responsible which had increased in the same way as have the fees for firearms and shotgun certificates.
The question of the costing of police time is an important matter. Those who have examined the subject in detail argue that there could be a considerable reduction in costs if a number of changes, of the sort suggested by the hon. Member for Harborough, were made.
A recent survey conducted by the British Shooting Sports Council showed that, for instance, of those making a first application for a firearm or shotgun certificate, 42 per cent. received more than one visit from the police and 8 per cent. received three or more visits. Even more surprisingly, in the case of renewals or variations 45 per cent. received more than one visit and 26 per cent. received three or more visits.
There are also vast differences in practice among police forces throughout the country. This is reflected in the cost of granting firearms certificates as revealed in the reviews. In the 1977 review, the charges of the Cumbria police were £10·41, the charges of the Northern Scotland police were £14·75 and the cost in other authorities, such as Devon, Cornwall, Dyfed, Powys, Humberside, Sussex and the West Midlands, varied between those figures. That is a very wide variation.
The council and firearm and shotgun holders are not grumbling negatively. They have made, and are making, a number of positive suggestions. I think that there is an obligation on the Minister to respond positively to those suggestions, which are not new but have been made over a number of years.
I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to give a positive response to the suggestion of combined inquiries. It is argued, and I believe with conviction, that this would lead to a drastic reduction in costs and would make increased charges less severe than they have been in recent years. Secondly, I draw attention to the

extent of the validity of certificates, as did the hon. Member for Harborough in moving this prayer. It is argued that this would considerably case administrative problems and reduce costs.
No reasonable person would seek to argue that increasing the fees for firearm and shotgun certificates will make it significantly harder for criminals to obtain firearms. Criminals with money and determination find little difficulty in obtaining the weapons, or anything else that they want, in pursuing their criminal activities. It is suspected by holders of firearm and shotgun certificates that the very substantial increases in fees is designed to contain and reduce the gun population.
Such a pricing policy, if it does not deter criminals, certainly deters working people with limited means from either taking up or continuing to follow their chosen hobby. It will certainly deter younger people from taking up the sport and joining clubs where they can shoot under supervision without harming themselves or other people.
I urge the Minister to give a clear assurance that fees will not be increased substantially at regular intervals and that she will seriously consider a revision of police costs, which, in my view and the view of others, are unreal and unfair. I urge my hon. Friend to give urgent attention to the matter of combined inquiries and extending the validity of certificates.
A book entitled"Firearms Control ", written some time ago by a constituent of mine, Mr. Colin Greenwood, states in the final chapter:
 The imposition of unduly restrictive conditions on the grant of a certificate appears to be increasing. Each of these conditions should be examined to see whether or not it contributes towards achieving the object of the controls.
If the condition makes no significant contribution towards this end, it cannot be justified, and it is likely to do no more than to antagonise and inconvenience the certificate holder for no purpose.
The amount of time spent on administering the controls could be substantially decreased in a number of ways without in any way losing such effectiveness as the controls may have. In the first instance it is necessary to keep in mind the object of the controls, and it is to be regretted that these are not clearly stated in the legislation ".


I think that some redress can be effected by the Minister if she indicates that the time has come when the Home Office is prepared to consider urgently the suggestions which have been made. They are made in the hope that costs will be reduced, that increases will be much less frequent than they have been in the past and that they will be smaller in scale.

10.45 p.m.

Mr. Hector Monro: I am glad to support my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) in his prayer and to speak next following the constructive and helpful remarks of the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Madden). We want to see sport and recreation developed, not hindered, and I find the attitude of the Home Office in relation to firearms extremely depressing. The Minister's only concern seems to be security and effecting through high charges a reduction in the number of firearm certificates and shotgun certificates.
I entirely accept that security is of great importance. Indeed, I think that we should make positive efforts to improve it, particularly in the home, and to make security generally more effective. In common with other hon. Members who, I am sure, will wish to speak tonight, I pay tribute to the work of the police in administering this legislation and arranging for the certificates. But it is right to look at the method of licensing with a view to making more economies. Can we be just as efficient and yet charge considerably less? Could we not streamline the administration?
If I am to have my own firearm certificate renewed, all that is needed is a rubber stamp and a signature on the corner. A new piece of paper does not have to be produced. Much the same applies to one's shotgun certificate. I should have thought that a couple of minutes' work would produce all that was required on one's shotgun certificate. As my hon. Friend said, why do I need two pieces of paper when one would do? There is great scope for economy in the whole operation of producing these certificates.
Certainly, there is a strong case for lengthening the currency of a certificate. In the Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments last week dealing with the

position in Scotland, it was hinted by the Under-Secretary of State that this might be done. We should consider lengthening the currency of a certificate to five or seven years or even longer, in that way substantially reducing the administrative costs.
I put it to the Under-Secretary that recreation is important. I am a member, as, I am sure, are a number of hon. Members here tonight, of some of the organisations to which I wish to refer and which join with us in criticising the order, such as the National Rifle Association, the National Smallbore Rifle Association, the Clay Pigeon Shooting Association, WAGBI, pistol clubs, rifle clubs and a whole host of individual marksmen who use their rifles for active participation in club events. All those people require certificates if they own their own rifles, but, as has been said, in 1968 the fee went up from five shillings to £2·50 and now in 1979 we are looking at an increase to £18·50, or £15 for a renewal.
I wish to highlight the extremely high cost of a variation, at £15. All these increases are far ahead of the rise in the cost of living. Many top-class rifle shots will change their weapons during the year—perhaps changing the calibre of the ammunition which they use—and all this comes under a variation at £15 a time. It is putting a tremendous burden on those who shoot for pleasure if they have to pay so much to enjoy their sport. I have so far been referring to rifle shooting, but the shotgun certificate charges also are affected, though at a slightly lower level.
We want to see people of all ages, including young people, enjoying the countryside and, with appropriate permission, shooting in the countryside. Rifle shooting, pistol shooting, clay pigeon shooting and vermin shooting are all good recreation. That is shooting that should be encourged. Only through the use of firearms will young people learn the code of safety that is crucial.
We are talking about healthy occupations. They are far removed from the underworld of stolen guns and hold-ups that seem to fill the mind of the Home Office. The hon. Lady must find the right balance between sport and recreation on one side and security and administrative cost on the other. The balance


could be made much finer. It should be regulated not by increasing fees as is proposed but by making economies, either through the police or by streamlining the paper work that seems to take up so much time and to be so costly.
I hope that the hon. Lady will recognise that it is terribly important that she takes the order away, reconsiders it and returns it to the House, if she has the opportunity, with the proposed increases much reduced.

10.51 p.m.

Mr. Cranley Onslow: I briefly suport what has already been said in opposition to the order. I know that many other hon. Members want to speak, so I shall not take more time than I need to make two or three points.
First, I declare an interest. For some years I have been a member of the council of the National Rifle Association. Bisley is in my constituency, it being the headquarters of national target shooting sports. Further, as I hope the hon. Lady is aware, I have a great many angry constituents. They are angry because they do not understand why it is thought that they, who have taken pains to apply for licences to own firearms or shotguns, should be classified as potential criminals. They take the view that the potential criminal would not draw attention to himself by telling the police that he wants to have a firearm or a shotgun. They consider the whole exercise to be pointless in many aspects.
My constituents are especially angry about the total lack of evidence that anybody has applied his mind to how the same end could be achieved more simply and cheaply. They have no evidence from the Home Office or the police that anyone has seriously studied the effect of extending the life of a shotgun or firearm certificate. It seems logical that that is one means of economy. They have no evidence that serious thought has been given to how insurance companies might play a part in increasing the security in which weapons are kept. Generally they see in the history of the whole business the worst sort of Civil Service closed mind.
These matters have gone on for a long time. The hon. Lady will know that my hon. Friends, those in another place and representatives of the sports

concerned have trodden a steady path to the Home Office to try to get some appreciation of what is involved. They have always met a totally negative, unimaginative and deadpan response. This cannot continue any longer. We must have some sign from the Minister that the problem is understood, that something will be done and that long-suffering, law-abiding members of the public who want to have and enjoy firearms and shotguns for innocent sporting purposes are served by the Administration and not made to suffer by it. Part of the function of an Administration is to give the citizen what he wants and not merely to stand back and say"Pay up a bit more. We are too idle to think of an alternative."

10.54 p.m.

Mr. Marcus Kimball: I hope that when the hon. Lady replies she will do so in the same manner as her hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland in the Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments that sat last week. I detect in the Government a willingness to reconsider the whole problem of firearms and shotgun certificates.
There is a general desire in the House to do what the Minister has no power to do. The House as a whole feels, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) said, that the period for which a certificate is issued should be extended. If the fees go up, the period after the issue should be extended from three to six or even 10 years. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough referred to the period for which a driving licence was issued. Unfortunately, the Minister does not have power under the Act to extend the period. My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. White-law) used his place in the ballot two years ago to introduce a Bill to amend the Firearms Act 1968 and allow the Home Office to extend the period for which shotgun or firearm certificate were issued. That was objected to. I believe that the Government have had a change of heart. This came out clearly in the Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments recently.
If we are to extend the period, we must revise the Firearms Act 1968. We are in a position to look at that Act and face up to a general revision. There are one or two points that should be included in


such revision if the certificates are to be realistic. I refer especially to the shotgun certificate. Such a certificate should identify the weapons held. It does not do so now. It should specify the security arrangements required of the owner from a model list to be drawn up by the Home Office related to the different circumstances of residence, locality and probable frequency of use. The present practice varies in different parts of the country.
There should be no territorial limitations on a shotgun certificate. I accept that the territorial limitations applied to a firearm certificate are an important part of the enforcement procedure. There should be no limitation on the types and numbers of shotguns held. Safe keeping for a friend or relative would be a good reason for holding a shotgun certificate. An occasional invitation to shoot should be sufficient reason for holding a certificate. There should be no restrictions on the individual purchase or possession of ammunition. If we are to reduce the cost, we must extend the period.
In those eight points, there is an area of agreement which allows us to adjust the 1968 Act in a sensible way and in a spirit of compromise that everybody wants to see.
Bearing in mind the duty of the Home Office to protect the citizen, especially from weapons being stolen, I hope that in the next few years we shall see ourselves proceeding in this way and not have these acrimonious debates once a year whenever the fees are put up.

10.58 p.m.

Mr. Stephen Ross: I am not a shooting man. Obviously, the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball), who has a great knowledge of the subject, and the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) gave many of the facts to the House. I do not want to repeat them.
After the fees went up last year, I was chased in my constituency by a large number of people who liked to shoot. They asked me why I had not opposed the measure. I trotted out some answers that I suspect we may hear later this evening, such as the need to control firearms. I was soon put in my place. I therefore agreed to take a closer look into the situation. The more I looked at

it, the more alarmed I became and the more I realised how right are those who have firearms and shotgun certificates to protest.
There can be no foundation for the huge increases in fees that have taken place over the past few years. I read the speech made last year by the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Ross). I hope, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that he will catch your eye before the end of this debate. His speech contained facts and figures of which everyone should take note. He received no sensible answers.
We have heard this evening about the cost of collection. The hon. Member for Harborough said that it varied in the police forces throughout the country. I think he said that the cost in Hampshire was just over £10. That applies to my constituency.
The situation is getting out of hand. There is no justification at all for the Government asking for yet another increase this year. In view of the remarks of the hon. Member for Gainsborough, they should withdraw their proposal and consider revising the whole procedure as it discriminates against the legitimate holders of firearm and shotgun certificates.
I took the trouble a few months ago to visit one of the local clubs in the Isle of Wight, at Shanklin. I have had a letter from a Mr. Bloodworth—a very suitable name, perhaps, for someone dealing with firearms—in which he says:
 I feel I must write to you again about a further increase in firearms certificates which will put the cost up to £18.50 on the 1 May, which is an increase of 15.6 per cent. over last year's rise.
Are we to get justification for that, I wonder, tonight? I cannot think that we shall. I think that this is plainly a means test further to reduce the number of certificates held and will have no bearing on armed crimes.
Incidentally, I met the gentleman in question, with whose case I sympathise, at a meeting of the Shanklin riflle and pistol club, as he reminds me in his letter. I was given the chance to have a shot on the range and I am glad to say that I managed to hit the target. He goes on to ask in his letter for an"independent inquiry ". I know that it has been pressed in the House many times in Committee and on the Floor of the House, and I should like to support it tonight.


It really ought to take place. My correspondent goes on to quote the fees, which have gone up, as has already been said, from 1920 to the present time. He finishes up by asking, in big capital letters,"Please help us ".
I intend to do just that tonight. I hope that the hon. Member for Harborough will press the matter to a Division. If he does, I shall support him and ask other hon. Members here to do the same.

11.2 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Johnson Smith: It is orders of this kind which give Governments such a bad name, and particularly the Home Office. They keep coming back again and again, asking people to pay these outrageously discriminatory prices. I shall not weary the House with the statistics which have already been adduced in favour of our voting against this wretched order.
I am president of a rifle club. I know that from time to time people invite the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister to come to their constituency. I hope that, if the Under-Secretary of State has not visited a rifle club, she will visit the Felbridge rifle club, in East Grinstead, where she will be made very welcome.
I want particularly to emphasise the effect of the order on clubs of this kind, which take great pride in their security arrangements and believe that it is a well-disciplined and well-regulated sport, encompassing a good cross-section of the community. They particularly pride themselves on being family clubs. This is typical of many rifle clubs. They are not just for elderly gentlemen, for the middle-aged, or for young bloods who want to let off steam. The clubs bring in the whole family. When they are faced, on top of the costs of maintaining the club, with these huge increases of the kind that we have heard tonight, it makes them wonder what the Government are about.
In addition to the discrimination between this sport and other activities, there is discrimination also, they feel, between the cost of a firearm certificate, whether for granting or renewing, and a shotgun certificate, whether for granting or renewing.
It is not for me to suggest that those who have shotgun certificates are likely to use them in any criminal way whatever.

They pay quite a lot and they are responsible people. Those in rifle clubs such as mine see no reason why the cost of a shotgun certificate should be less than half the cost of a firearm certificate. As the chairman of the club put it in a letter to me,
 if £8·50 is an economic price for a shotgun certificate, it is an economic price for a firearms certificate ".
Some people may question that and say that before a firearm certificate is granted—especially to a member of a club—extra special precautions have to be taken. But, even so, surely it does not take double the time. There is a great sense of grievance here, and I very much hope that the spirit in which we have entered the debate will find an echo in the reply from the Minister.

11.4 p.m.

Mr. Wm. Ross: I very much regret that we are back this evening once more with the miserable spectacle of the Government seeking an increase in firearm fees. Since I came into this House I have spoken on every possible occasion against the orders which have been laid, and I take no real pleasure in having to do it once again this evening. The last two occasions were on 6 March 1978, when the Northern Ireland order arrived on the Floor of the House, and on 3 May 1978, when the orders for Scotland and for England and Wales were discussed in Committee.
The Northern Ireland order will be coming up again this year, so that I shall be having another go next Thursday. For that reason, I do not intend to detain the House very long. But I want to repeat what I said last year on the orders for Scotland and for England and Wales:
 I shall be very brief. I question the whole concept of firearms control as it exists in the United Kingdom and, indeed, in most of the Western world. I believe it is an almost total waste of time and effort by the police and the authorities. I believe that the whole system could be scrapped quite easily because it is utterly useless in trying to prevent firearms getting into the hands of criminals or terrorists.… In short, I believe that it is time that the whole subject was re-examined or rather, perhaps—
—and since last year I have become more and more confirmed in this view—
 that a detailed examination was undertaken with an open mind for the first time."—[Official Report, Third Standing Committee on-Statutory Instruments, 3 May 1978; c. 12.]


The House will realise that I go a good deal further than those Members who have spoken so far. Tinkering with the present system is not enough. The Government are defending a set of basic premises which have nothing to do with reality, and never have. The Government are trying to defend a position which is indefensible.
This Government and successive Governments have been very foolish not to explore the whole question of firearms control, not only in this part of the United Kingdom but throughout the nation. They should approach the matter with an open mind and have a far-reaching and detailed inquiry.
Criminals and terrorists have no trouble in obtaining guns. They are the one section of the community which is always able to find a firearm to use it for an illegal purpose and to murder someone. Time has moved on since fears existed which caused the first firearms legislation to be introduced. This legislation has been maintained over the years because of false and foolish attitudes which were adopted at that time.
It is time that we had sensible decisions in order to rid ourselves of the waste of police time and effort. Will the Minister set us down that road this evening and do something constructive about firearms control?

11.7 p.m.

Mr. Jerry Wiggin: Once a year I have the pleasure of leading a number of my colleagues from this House to battle on Bisley Common with Members of the other place. I am happy to say that a number of hon. Members from both sides of the House support us on such occasions. The least that I can do tonight is to express our gratitude for that annual hospitality by quoting a few lines from a letter from the secretary of the National Rifle Association, members of which are deeply concerned about the increase in fees for firearm certificates. I shall quote one short paragraph, which states:
 Let me remind you that the NRA was founded in 1860 and incorporated by Royal Charter in 1890: ' To promote and encourage Marksmanship throughout the Queen's dominions in the interests of Defence and the permanence of the Volunteer and Auxiliary Forces. Naval, Military and Air '. And it is

on these grounds—in the interests of Defence—that my Association is registered as a Charity.
The secretary goes on to inquire how these objectives can be sustained if the Home Office is to adopt a policy, which it surely is, of increasing the fees for firearm certificates in such a way that the vast majority of members of his association—people who enjoy shooting as a hobby—will no longer be able to do so.
There can be no new arguments in this debate. We have been over this issue many times in the past few years. However, I should like to take up the point made by the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Ross) about crime. If the control of firearms is in the interests of controlling crime, it is a Gilbert and Sullivan situation because it is the law-abiding people who do not get involved who will be penalised.
The Minister has been asked time and again to give statistics, and she has failed to do so. She knows very well that this legislation will not stop the criminal from possessing a firearm but will merely prevent those who wish to enjoy the sport as a hobby from doing so. Members of the National Rifle Association can rightly number among themselves those who are the most law-abiding citizens of the community.
Suggestions have been made for combining certificates and lengthening their period of validity. I do not know whether I carry my hon. Friends with me on this, but putting the possession of the weapons on to some sort of register is something that could and should be considered. In an electronic age, where we have surplus computer capacity, surely it is not beyond us to do something about the problem. I wholeheartedly support my hon. Friends who have rightly tabled this prayer. The number of hon. Members present for this debate shows the depth of feeling on both sides of the House on this important issue.

11.10 p.m.

Mr. Clement Freud: I agree with every hon. Member who has spoken that this is a thoroughly nasty little measure. It has been introduced on a Thursday night when, as the House well knows, the majority of hon. Members who represent rural constituencies normally go home to be among their constituents.


I very much hope that the Minister will bear in mind that I am the eighth hon. Member to support the prayer of the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr). If democracy is listening to the voices of Members of the House of Commons, rather than depending on the votes of Members sitting in the Tea Room, I sincerely hope that the hon. Lady will bear in mind the concerted opposition to this measure.
I cannot agree with the hon. Member for East Grinstead (Mr. Johnson Smith), who would like to invite the Minister to his rifle club. I can only say that, if the Minister came to the rifle club in my constituency, I would fear for her life. There would be no kindness, because my constituents are exceedingly angry. It is felt—and this is a pretty common feeling—that the Government are looking—[Interruption.] I hope that I am not disturbing the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball). The feeling of my constituents is that the Government are looking at some section of society which they can clobber without losing votes, and that the shooting faction seems to the Government to be a convenient one for that purpose.
I would believe any protestations that we might hear later if similar increases were made in bingo licences and fishing—the sort of pursuits that are more normally practised by Labour Members—

Mr. Russell Kerr: I do not play bingo.

Mr. Freud: The hon. Gentleman has woken up. I hope that he will take a deep interest in what goes on. It is important on the grounds of security to bear in mind that the more people can learn about the use of firearms the safer, and not the less safe, will this country be.
We have been Gilbert and Sullivan. I should like to finish with a quote from one of Kipling's barrrack room ballads, in which the chorus goes:
 Oh, it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' Tommy go away ';
But it's ' Thank you, Mister Atkins, ' when the band begins to play.
The more people can be encouraged legally to use firearms, the safer and not the less safe will this country be.

11.13 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dr. Shirley Summer-skill): I understand the concern that exists about the increased fee, and, although I represent an industrial town and not a rural constituency, I have had one letter from a constituent complaining about it. I understand the concern that is felt on both sides of the House.
I refute the suggestion of the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud). If he listens, he will find that I am about to refer to bingo halls. The bingo licence was £250 in 1973 and was raised to £750 in 1978.

Mr. Freud: That is for the operators, not the practitioners.

Dr. Summerskill: Therefore, there is no question of shooters being picked out from other sections of the community for discriminatory action by the Government.

Mr. Freud: That really is the most unfair analogy, because, as the Minister well knows, the people who play bingo receive entirely the money which they put down in order to participate in the game. Therefore, the increase comes from the people who organise the bingo, who are usually on the Opposition Benches, rather than those who play it.

Dr. Summerskill: That is why I cannot understand why the hon. Gentleman raised the question of bingo halls. But he did, so I thought I would simply mention that in passing.
I should like to take this opportunity to dispel some of the misunderstanding that seems to surround the interpretation of the Government's action. The order deals with one aspect of firearms control—the level of fees to be charged for certificates relating to the possession of firearms and shotguns and for the registration of people as firearms dealers. It sets out a new scale of fees payable from 1 May. It does not and cannot, as the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball) appreciated, make other changes in the firearms law. In general, such changes would need primary legislation.
I have a feeling that my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr Madden) was suggesting that we should not have a fee at all. He seemed to dislike the whole idea of charges being made for this police activity. But Parliament made statutory


provision for the fee for a firearms certificate in 1920, under the Firearms Act, and for a shotgun certificate in 1967. We are dealing with an order to change the fee.
I appreciate that increased charges are never welcome, and I can understand the concern of the shooting community over the regular and, I admit, substantial increases in these fees in recent years. But the reason is simple. There is no other reason; there is no subtle reason; there is no sadistic desire by the Government to put up the fee. The costs have risen, and someone must meet them. The controls needed for public safety must be paid for, and it is right that they are borne by those who use guns rather than by a subsidy from taxpayers and ratepayers at large.

Mr. Stephen Ross: If the cost is shown in the official statistics for Hampshire to be just over £10, why are my constituents charged £18·50? If it costs £50 in the Metropolitan area, all right: charge people there £50. But why cannot we get away with £10?

Dr. Summerskill: Perhaps I can pursue the argument, if the hon. Gentleman will bear with me.
Before 1968 the fee for a firearm certificate was five shillings, and that for renewal of a certificate half-a-crown. The major portion of the costs of administering licensing and certification procedures then fell on the taxpayer and ratepayer, who provided a not inconsiderable subsidy.
But in 1968 Parliament decided that this must change and that, where a person wished to engage in an activity controlled in the public interest, he or she should be expected to pay the economic cost of issuing and renewing his or her licence or certificate. This principle was endorsed in section 5 of the Public Expenditure and Receipts Act 1968, the relevant words of which are:
 With a view to securing from the fees, charges or other payments…a net return corresponding more nearly with the cost of the matters for which they are payable ".
That is the principle, and it has been the policy of successive Governments to apply it to fees and charges in general.
The hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) argued that as that Act did not specifically mention firearms fees we were

wrong to apply this underlying rule and to increase them in line with rising costs. The Act does not refer to firearms fees, because at the time it was passed—March 1968—the Firearms Bill was still before Parliament. In fact, the Firearms Act received Royal Assent in May 1968, two months after the Public Expenditure and Receipt Act had become law.
Section 43 of the Firearms Act 1968 empowers the Secretary of State by order to vary the fees. It would be illogical if in the exercise of that power the Secretary of State were to disregard the principle of full recovery of costs embodied in an Act of Parliament passed only a few weeks earlier.
I must emphasise that fees for firearm certificates and for registration as a firearms dealer are set at the minimum level required to recover as nearly as practicable the costs of administering the scheme, and no more. The shooter is treated no differently from any other licence or certificate holder whose activities are regulated in the public interest. Many of the arguments put forward by shooters amount to demands that the shooting community should be subsidised and should not be expected to pay the real cost of its certificates. Parliament and the Government have not accepted that.

Mr. Onslow: The Under-Secretary said that shooters are not treated differently, but she is overlooking the way in which driving licences have been extended greatly in time, which must have led to some economy. What consideration has been given to cutting down administrative work and saving money, which would obviate the need for an increase in firearms fees?

Dr. Summerskill: I shall come to that. It is not possible to make exact comparisons between fees for firearm certificates and those charged for various other types of licence and certificate, such as a car or dog licence. The activities are not analogous, the work involved in issuing the necessary authority is not exactly comparable, and the relevant legislation under which some activities are controlled makes no provision for any fee to be charged. In this instance we are dealing with a situation where there has been provision for a fee to be charged. In some of the examples quoted there is no provision for any fee to be charged.


Nevertheless, many fees have been substantially increased in recent years. My Department is not particularly picking out shooters' licences. Costs have gone up, and police registration certificates for aliens and naturalisation certificates have, for example, gone up. It is not just this one item that has been picked out.
I should like to make it clear that there is absolutely no truth in the suggestion that the Government are deliberately escalating the cost of firearm certificates as a means of disarming the population. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby and others that there is no evidence that firearms used in violent crime are stolen from certificate holders. That is no argument for putting up the cost of a firearm licence, although hon. Members insist that it is part of the Government's motivation. It is not and never has been Government policy to prevent the possession of firearms by private individuals who have legitimate reasons for requiring them or to place unnecessary restrictions on the freedom of bona fide shooters to enjoy their sport.
I should like to examine the scale of fees. Under the new scale, renewal of a firearm certificate will cost £15. That certificate lasts for three years, making its cost £5 a year. Put another way, that is l0p a week, which is no more than the cost of a single round of ammunition. Shotgun certificates cost even less. An initial grant works out at less than 6p a week, and renewal at about 4p a week. That is again well below the cost of a single cartridge.

Mr. A. P. Costain: Can the Under-Secretary state why a person who has a firearms certificate should also need a shotgun certificate?

Dr. Summerksill: I shall come to that. I should like to deal with the increases themselves. I must make it clear that the revenue from these fees does not come to the Government. Police authorities collect the money and set it against overall police expenditure. At regular intervals we carry out reviews in which the police tell us the costs to them of dealing with applications for certificates and for registration as a firearms dealer. These returns are made by a representative sample of police forces in the country. The last such review was

in 1977 and covered the period ending 31 March 1977. The figures revealed by the review are then examined and adjusted to take account of pay and price increases in the period since the facts were recorded or expected to take place in the period for which the order will remain in force.
The basis of the 1977 review was completely objective. A copy of our letter of guidance was placed in the Library last year and any hon. Member can see it. This guidance was designed to ensure three things: first, that all the forces taking part used broadly similar costing methods; secondly, that the details of cost submitted reflected only the cost of dealing with successful applications; thirdly, to ensure that the estimates included all properly attributable police costs, including police time and relevant overheads.
The estimates provided by the police forces taking part in the review were published. This material formed the basis for calculating the fees introduced on 1 April last year.
This year we have not considered it justifiable to put police forces to the very time-consuming trouble of making detailed returns. Instead, the scale of fees in the schedule to the Firearms (Variation of Fees) Order 1979 has been worked out by taking into account increases in costs which are known to have occurred since last April. I need not remind the House that substantial and well-deserved pay increases were awarded to the police. The first stage of the award was paid in September 1978 and the second stage of these increases is due to be paid in September this year. I am sure that the increases are welcomed by the whole House.
In addition, the cost of civilian staff and administrative overheads have risen, although by a smaller amount. The figures derived from the 1977 survey have been reassessed to take account of these increases in pay and other costs. This showed that a further increase in the level of fees is necessary in the forthcoming financial year if the shortfall in the recovery of costs is not to rise to an unacceptable level. Costs have risen and the consequences must be faced. The amounts of the new fees have been determined solely by the need to recover the higher costs, and the increases are the


minimum needed to achieve that. We have made every effort to keep the increases as low as possible, and they have been agreed with the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection.
It has been suggested that police costs in administering the Firearms Act are capable of being substantially reduced. I am very much in favour of keeping costs down wherever possible, but this must not be allowed to diminish the effectiveness of the present controls. There are no easy ways of reducing police costs in administering the certification procedures. Most forces employ a very small staff. The clerical and administration work at police headquarters accounts for only a minor part of the cost. The major element of the cost is accounted for by inquiries carried out by police officers in the locality to establish the suitability of the applicant and the arrangements made for ensuring the safe custody of firearms.
Some people complain that these inquiries are too detailed. The amount of time taken over such inquiries and the manpower resources involved will of course vary from one force to another. They will depend on different factors, but it is for the chief officer of police concerned to decide how that is done.

Two suggestions have been made by the hon. Member for Harborough and others concerning possible changes. The suggestion that increased costs might be offset by increasing the period of validity of firearms and shotgun certificates is under very careful consideration, but if a system of interim checks during the validity of a certificate were to be substituted the saving in overall costs would be negligible. However, we are looking into the matter in consultation with the Association of Chief Police Officers to see whether a suitable and workable solution can be found.

The second suggestion was that there would be a saving in police work if a person held both a firearm and a shotgun certificate and could renew both at the same time. We are looking at that to see whether it might be practicable and whether it might produce some saving in police costs without decreasing the effectiveness of the firearms control. But if we did either of those it would need new legislation and police agreement.

It being half-past Eleven o'clock, Mr. SPEAKER put the Question, pursuant to Standing Order No. 4 (Statutory Instruments, &amp;c. (Procedure)):—

The House divided: Ayes 115, Noes 26.

Division No. 105]
AYES
11.30 p.m.


Aitken, Jonathan
Gorst, John
More, Jasper (Ludlow)


Banks, Robert
Grieve, Percy
Morgan, Geraint


Bell, Ronald
Grimond, Rt Hon J.
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral


Biggs-Davison, John
Grylls, Michael
Morris, Michael (Northampton S)


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Hamilton, Archibald (Epsom &amp; Ewell)
Nelson, Anthony


Bottomley, Peter
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Newton, Tony


Braine, Sir Bernard
Hampson, Dr Keith
Onslow, Cranley


Brocklebank-Fowler, C.
Hastings, Stephen
Osborn, John


Brotherton, Michael
Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael
Page, John (Harrow West)


Bryan, Sir Paul
Henderson, Douglas
Pattie, Geoffrey


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Hicks, Robert
Penhaligon, David


Clark, William (Croydon S)
Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)
Pink, R. Bonner


Clegg, Walter
Hunt, David (Wirral)
Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch


Cope, John
Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)
Price, David (Eastleigh)


Cormack, Patrick
James, David
Raison, Timothy


Costain, A. P.
Jessel, Toby
Rathbone, Tim


Craig, Rt Hon W. (Belfast E)
Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)
Rees, Peter (Dover &amp; Deal)


Dean, Foul (N Somerset)
Kilfedder, James
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Drayson, Burnaby
Kimball, Marcus
Rhodes James, R.


Dunlop, John
Langford-Holt, Sir John
Ridley, Hon Nicholas


Durant, Tony
Lawrence, Ivan
Ridsdale, Julian


Dykes, Hugh
Lloyd, Ian
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Loveridge, John
Ross, William (Londonderry)


Emery, Peter
McCusker, H.
Sainsbury, Tim


Fairbairn, Nicholas
MacKay, Andrew (Stechford)
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)


Farr, John
Macmillan, Rt Hop M. (Farnham)
Shepherd, Colin


Fell, Anthony
Madden, Max
Silvester, Fred


Fisher, Sir Nigel
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)
Smith, Timothy John (Ashfield)


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Mates, Michael
Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)


Fookes, Miss Janet
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Spicer, Michael (S Worcester)


Fox, Marcus
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Sproat, lain


Freud, Clement
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)
Stainton, Keith


Gardiner, George (Reigate)
Moate, Roger
Stanley, John


Glyn, Dr Alan
Molyneaux, James
Steel, Rt Hon David


Goodhew, Victor
Montgomery, Fergus
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)




Tebbit, Norman
Wall, Patrick
TELLERS FOR THE AYES;


Temple-Morris, Peter
Walters, Dennis
Mr. Jerry Wiggin and


Townsend, Cyril D.
Wells, John
Mr. Michael Shersby.


Waddington, David
Winterton, Nicholas



Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)
Wood, Rt Hon Richard



NOES


Abse, Leo
English, Michael
Snape, Peter


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley


Bates, Alt
Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)
Urwin, Rt Hon T. W.


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Graham, Ted
Ward, Michael


Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)
Harrison, Rt Hon Walter
Watkinson, John


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Kerr, Russell
White, Frank R. (Bury)


Crowther, Stan (Rotherham)
Luard, Evan



Dormand, J. D.
Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
McCartney, Hugh
Mr. James Tina and


Duffy, A. E. P.
Noble, Mike
Mr. John Evans.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Resolved,

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Firearms (Variation of Fees) Order 1979 (S. I., 1979, No. 86), dated 30 January 1979, a copy of which was laid before this House on 7 February, be annulled.

To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's Household.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 73A (Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.)

LEGAL AID AND ADVICE

That the Legal Aid (Financial Conditions) Regulations 1979, a copy of which was laid before this Hosue on 21 February, be approved.

That the Legal Advice and Assistance (Financial Conditions) (No. 2) Regulations 1979, a copy of which was laid before this House on 21 February, be approved.

ELECTRICITY

That the draft North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board (Compensation for Smelter Deficits) Order 1979, which was laid before this House on 6 March, be approved.—[Mr. Bates.]

Question agreed to.

PROCEDURE

Ordered,

That the Standing Order of 15 June 1976 relating to the nomination of the Select Committee on Procedure be amended, by leaving out Mr. Peter Hordern and inserting Mr. Fred Silvester.—[Mr. Bates.]

DIVORCE LAWS

Motion made, and Question proposed. That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Bates.]

11.44 p.m.

Mr. Leo Abse: About half the children born today in the United States will, before they grow up, be fated to live in a one-parent unit. That calculation is on the optimistic assumption that the United States' divorce rate, which reveals that 35 per cent. of marriages contracted this year will end in divorce, does not increase still further.
Is that tomorrow's destiny for Britain's children? Is the two-parent family on its way out? Will one marriage in a lifetime be regarded as abnormal? Unhappily, these are not alarmist questions to pose in Britain today. Our admonitory divorce statistics compel us to pose the questions.
Divorce reached a record level in 1977 with a figure of 127,000, and the number of new petitions filed in 1977 was an increase of 16 per cent. on 1976. When the final figure is recorded, everything will point to there having been a further big increase in 1978. That figure will corroborate yet again that love is not necessarily happier the second time round, because second marriages have an even higher divorce rate than first marriages.
In the United States the arrangements for a White House conference on the future of the family have broken down, substantially because of the tensions between those nostalgic for the hitherto conventional marriage unit and those who, perhaps pessimistically, perhaps realistically, insist that there must be profound societal changes—legal, economic and


social—to meet what they regard as the inevitability of the new family unit, already witnessed by the fact that the United States' single parents are rearing 11,310,000 of the nation's children.
We have not yet the dilemma gripping the United States of America, but we have no right to be complacent, for already one in 10 families here are one-parent families and, mostly because of the divorce of parents, single parents are bringing up at least 1¼ million children in Britain.
Nothing is more naive than to attribute this position, as the ill-informed often do, to the Divorce Reform Act which the House passed a decade ago and of which, I acknowledge, I was one of the principal architects. Decrees absolute do not cause marriage breakdowns, any more than death certificates cause death. Too often it is forgotten that one of the main reasons why we altered our divorce laws was to assist the 200,000 children who, because of the archaic old divorce laws, were being brought up in an atmosphere of guilt and tension because the laws prevented tens of thousands of permanently cohabiting couples from being able to regularise their unions.
It is also too often forgotten that the 1969 Act had two aims, not one. The first was to ensure that when, regrettably, a marriage had broken down, it should be ended with dignity and with the maximum fairness possible. The second was to buttress the stability of marriage, and with that object reconciliation procedures were introduced into the law.
Unfortunately, these procedures have been a complete failure. Though the Act ended the hypocrisies of the old law and it is no longer a prerequisite to obtain a decree that a party has to scoop out the worst obscenities discoverable in a marriage and throw them across an open court, and although no one can now be chained to a dead marriage unto death, nevertheless the gain made in allowing some marriages to end in dignity should not mislead us.
The judges have swung from making judgments on innocence and guilt to a disinterested morality, and rarely attempt to nudge the parties to conciliation. The Lord Chancellor has yielded to Treasury demands to cut legal aid, leaving parties

to carry out do-it-yourself divorces by post. Solicitors have too often worked to rule, insisting upon demarcation lines that limit them to severing marriages, not healing them.
Healthy divorces are as important to society as healthy marriages. If marriages end unnecessarily, or in a welter of recrimination, the divorce decree can be an enslavement, not a liberation. No divorce law is complete unless it seeks to prepare the parties for a changed life and for new responsibilities and if it does not help to overcome the feelings of bitterness, guilt and inadequacy which almost inevitably accompany the breakdown of marriage. Above all, a divorce law which, lacking time, patience or skill, gives a decree when the parties are for total reconciliation, or for some measure of reconciliation, serves the community ill.
Are all these divorces inevitable? When wives or husbands protest against the adjudication of the court on the custody of children, the disposal of the matrimonial home, or the amount of maintenance, do they do so because the courts are unjust or because, too often, the parties were never helped to mourn through their grief at the death of their marriage? Denied the opportunity of a catharsis by a"quickie"divorce, is their protest an attempt to relieve their anguish? How often are the children torn in two, rent with conflicting loyalties and unnecessarily made the victims of the unworked-through hostilities of their parents?
There is a growing restlessness in the community, and a belief that we can do better than we are doing is spreading rapidly. If the foundation of our society is the two-parent family, it is time for a more serious response, above all for the sake of the children, to be made to the challenge of marriage breakdown. The Finer report and the two reports published in the last month,"Marriage Matters"by the Home Office working party and"A Better Way Out"by the Law Society, all indicate how wide is the consensus that, apart from strengthening our reconciliation machinery, we desperately need a switch from our adversary style divorce procedures to a benign inquisitorial inquiry aimed at reducing the areas of conflict and assisting the parties


to deal with the consequences of breakdown by obtaining mutual consents on the issues of custody, support, access to, and education of, the children, financial provision and the disposition of the matrimonial home.
All, and particularly the solicitors of the Law Society, are stressing the need for a professional counselling service to be developed, to support the court's inquiry into the aftermath of divorce. It is not enough to leave this work to voluntary effort, like the gallant attempts made, so far without State aid by the National Council for the Divorced and Separated, of which I have the privilege to be president. It has established six divorce counselling services throughout the country and hopes shortly to open more.
The emanicipation of women from the bed and kitchen stereotype and the decline of the authoritarian family, together with the growth of the democratic one, all bring great gains to a society able, consequently, to benefit much more from women's contributions. But with the enormous gains come new tensions and queries. Few doubt that one of the main causes of present instability in marriage comes from the difficulty of adjustment to the rights of women, irresistibly and rightly, gained in recent years.
When I completed the Divorce Reform Act 1969, I may have had the illusion that that Act had settled the divorce laws for a generation. But we legislate today on an accelerating moving staircase. The campaign, understandably, being waged by the Campaign for Justice in Divorce reflects some of the new moods and asks whether a woman, when her children are grown up, can any longer expect maintenance or whether the wife of the newly created family unit must have priority.
Certainly I ask whether we do not need a totally different set of principles governing our divorce laws in the case of childless marriages as distinct from those where there are children. There is a clear need for a review of our divorce laws. The Lord Chancellor has taken the view that such a review is premature and that more time is required before we came to new conclusions.
I have always believed in the politics of prevention, and I loathe instant politics. Responses to pressures which have built up severely are often faulty and ill-

thought-out. Therefore, I now ask the Solicitor-General to convey to the Lord Chancellor the fact that there is growing opinion in the country and in the House that he should refer the Divorce Reform Act to the Law Commission for a fresh review. The Law Commission under Leslie Scarman played a vital and constructive part in shaping the divorce laws. It should now, after a decade has passed, examine the present workings of the Act so that its blemishes are removed.
In accordance with the tradition which it has established for itself, the Law Commission would undoubtedly collect the opinions not only of lawyers but of all in our society concerned to strengthen the stability of our family life and to ensure, above all, that the worst victims of marriage breakdown, the children, are foremost in our minds in any changes that it may propose.

11.56 p.m.

Mr. Robert Rhodes James: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): Do I take it that the hon. Gentleman has the agreement of the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) to intervene in his Adjournment debate?

Mr. Abse: Yes, Mr. Deputy Speaker, certainly.

Mr. Rhodes James: I am most grateful. I wish to express my strong support for the general thrust of the speech just delivered by the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) and to tell the House of my own profound concern about the status of our divorce law, and especially about the circumstances which now obtain for husbands. In my view, the law has now swung so far that the balance of advantage has tipped in favour of wives and against husbands in divorce cases.
I fully share the hon. Gentleman's doubts, and I am increasingly convinced that only by the introduction of family courts and specialised courts will these desperately difficult matters be dealt with. These are not matters which greatly concern the House of Commons, Front Benchers or politicians generally, but to an increasing extent they seriously affect ordinary people.
We owe a great debt to the hon. Member for Pontypool. On various


subjects he has established himself as not only a sensible but a percipient and advanced exponent of important points which some of us should have realised earlier. We are very grateful to him. I cannot say this on behalf of the Conservative Party, but I am deeply grateful to him, and on this subject I simply say that the Solicitor-General should realise that we on these Opposition Benches will be extremely sympathetic to any proposal which may be made to make our divorce laws more humane and certainly more realistic in the circumstances which now obtain. On these matters we support the main points which the hon. Gentleman made.

11.58 p.m.

The Solicitor-General (Mr. Peter Archer): I certainly echo what the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James) has just said, that we have reason to be grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse), and not least for initiating what I hope will be not only a debate in the House but a public debate on these questions.
My hon. Friend made clear that he was not asking for immediate legislation. This is a subject bristling with issues which merit wide discussion and sometimes more factual research than we have at the moment. Some of the issues, as my hon. Friend said, extend beyond the law of divorce—issues about the role of marriage and of the family—and I believe that legislation is not to be recommended until we have achieved some consensus on these questions.
But if we are to reach decisions within the measurable future the time to initiate the discussion is now, and I offer my congratulations to the family law subcommittee of the Law Society on the thought-provoking document to which my hon. Friend referred, with its thought-provoking title"A Better Way Out ". It embodies the experience of those who practise in this field, and if it evokes a response from others with a different point of view I am sure that it will lead to a valuable debate.
My hon. Friend indicated something of the history of these matters. I accept that the increase in the divorce rate is not attributable to the 1969 Act. I hope he will agree with me that the increase

should not be attributed to the special procedure for undefended divorces, which spared the parties the necessity of rehearsing their matrimonial tragedies in a public hearing and in the process saved something on the legal aid bill, which, as my hon. Friend knows, is now being devoted to a cause that is close to his heart.
It is true that in 1966 the group presided over by the Bishop of Exeter published the report"Putting Asunder ", which recommended that the test for a divorce should be not the proof of a matrimonial offence but whether the marriage had broken down. It proposed, too, that the role of the court should be not to adjudicate between two opposing parties, encouraging them to regard the process as a contest with their interests implacably opposed, but to investigate for itself the facts and to decide what was best to be done. It was the difference between the accusatorial procedure, which is normal in our legal system, and the inquisitorial role, which is more usual in some other systems.
There was some controversy whether it was right to make so abrupt a change. My right hon. and noble Friend Lord Gardiner, the then Lord Chancellor, referred the matter to the Law Commission. In its report,"The Field of Choice ", it proposed a compromise. It proposed that the basis of divorce should be the breakdown of marriage but that that should require to be evidenced by a more clearly justiciable test.
That was the basis of the 1969 Act. It was introduced as a Private Member's Bill by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Jones.) We recollect the leading role which my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool played in the debates that ensued. It is true that the 1969 Act has been re-enacted in a codifying statute, the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, but it has been the basis of our divorce law for nine years. I think that it was right to wait and see how that legislation operated. We knew that there were those who, under the previous legislation, had been unable to obtain a divorce and who would seize the new opportunity. We knew that there would be a period while the bulge was working its way through. But the time has probably now approached when we can assess how the system is working. That


gives rise to a number of questions, some of which have been ventilated by my hon. Friend and by the hon. Member for Cambridge.
Should divorce now be based on the simple criterion of whether a marriage has broken down? The Law Society document suggests that it should, but that that should still be required to be established by a single justiciable test. It proposes that the test should be whether the parties have been living apart for a year. I understand the argument for that course. Anything that leads to a post mortem on a dead marriage merely increases the bitterness. It compels the parties to relive their tragedies. It makes it less likely that they will sort out issues relating to the future of their children and family property without rancour.
But there are those who believe that marriage as an institution would be devalued if divorce were available too readily. They say that it is one thing to recognise the unhappy fact that a marriage is dead and another to imply by legislation and practice that it should be hastily buried without any form of death certificate and without attempting the kiss of life. I am not making an assertion. I am merely raising the question where we should draw the line between making the process of divorce no more protracted or agonising then it need be on the one hand and on the other continuing adequately to recognise marriage as a status.
A great deal turns on the way in which marriage is regarded in our community. My hon. Friend has quoted some disconcerting figures from the other side of the Atlantic, and some from this side from which we may take no comfort. On 6 March 1979 my noble Friend Lord Wells-Pestell referred to some statistics in answer to a question from the noble Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale. The indicated that the number of one-parent families had increased from 570,000 in 1970 to 750,000 in 1976. The number of one-parent families headed by a divorced mother had increased in that period from 120,000 to 230,000. It had almost doubled.
It would be heartless not to recognise those figures and to legislate accordingly. A number of measures have been taken in the lifetime of the present Government to alleviate the problems. But I do not think

that it is inconsistent with that to say that we should consider whether there are ways in which we can change that trend and encourage marriage as a stable relationship. It is arguable that, whatever discussions we have about reforming the law on divorce, we should at the same time be discussing what measures we can take to support existing marriages.
In 1975 the National Marriage Guidance Council, the Catholic Marriage Advisory Council and the Institute of Marital Studies proposed that there should be a study of the provisions for helping people with their marital problems. In consequence a working party was established by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Home Affairs in consultation with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services. In January of this year it published its report,"Marriage Matters ". I have seen the motion which my hon. Friend put down welcoming that report. It is a consultative document containing a number of important recommendations. It has been issued, with a joint recommendation by the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Security, for comments and proposals.
The second question which we should consider is what efforts, if any, should be made to effect a reconciliation, or, if that is impossible, to arrange for conciliation in the resolution of the other matters which inevitably arise when a marriage breaks up. My hon. Friend takes the view that the provisions in the 1969 Act are totally ineffective. I have heard the argument that when parties have reached the stage of instructing solicitors it is too late for a reconciliation. The Law Society, in its document, agreed that the provision was a total failure. Without going as far as that, I am aware that the effectiveness has been more limited than was originally hoped by those who argued for it.
The Law Society document supported the view of the Finer committee in favour of a comprehensive welfare service attached to the court which would be built on the foundation of the present court welfare officers and of the Marriage Guidance Council. The Finer committee argued for two specific welfare functions. The first was that the court should be concerned with conciliation. This was seen not as the mending of broken


marriages but as having the special meaning of assisting the parties to deal with the consequences of the breakdown of their marriage. This concept of a conciliatory approach to the dissolution of marriage was a particularly important insight on the part of the Finer committee. It argued that the second welfare element in the work of the family court should be the need to have an investigative reporting and supervisory service available to the court to provide the information which it needs on which to base its decisions.
The working party on marriage guidance explained that how children coped with the break-up of their families depended largely on the relationship between their separated parents. It considered that although there was no immediate prospect of a family court of the kind which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, a court conciliation service could be developed to serve divorce and magistrates' domestic courts, and that it would be on lines similar to those recommended by the Finer committee.
My hon. Friend is aware, I know, of the Bristol courts' family conciliation service, which was welcomed by the working party. This will enable us to assess how conciliation is likely to work. The service is linked with local solicitors, the divorce court and the magistrates' court. It is managed by a committee, chaired by a circuit judge, which comprises representatives of magistrates, county and magistrates' courts, the marriage councils, the Law Society, the Bar, the probation service and the local council of voluntary service, with co-opted members. The conciliators are all part-time volunteers. They consist of marriage councillors, former social workers, probation officers who have retired and mothers with young children. That scheme may be able to help us assess the best way in which we can approach the problem of conciliation and, where possible, reconciliation.
The third question, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, was whether we should alter the existing structure of the courts which hear these matters. We are aware of the problems that have arisen from time to time due to differences between the matrimonial law administered in the High Court and that in the magistrates' courts. A great deal has been done to close that gap by the Domestic Proceedings

and Magistrates' Courts Act 1978, although that Act has not yet been implemented. The Finer committee argued for a family court. That idea has been endorsed by such authorities as Judge Jean Graham Hall in her proposal published by the National Council for One-Parent Families.
The contribution of the Finer committee has been to clarify two major issues. First, it laid great stress on the family court as an impartial judicial institution, that is to say, a judicial institution which in dealing with family matters, does justice according to law. The object of achieving welfare should not be permitted to weaken or short-cut the usual safeguards of the judicial process.
Secondly, the Finer committee did not envisage the family court as providing a comprehensive family welfare service. The committee was quite precise as to the limited welfare function of a family court and treated this function as being subservient to its judicial nature. Thus, it did not see the family courts, as such, as having a direct responsibility for reconciliation. It hoped that they would give attention to conciliation.
The Law Society's document argues for a family court divided into two tiers, of which the first tier would deal with most matters and the second would deal with cases of particular difficulty. The first-tier court would consist of a legally qualified chairman, with a status equivalent to that of a circuit judge, and two other members.
The Government, in response to the report of the Select Committee on violence in the family, said that they accepted in principle the concept of a family court. They went on to say, however, that there was little likelihood of such a court being established in the foreseeable future. The Select Committee accepted that resources were not available at this stage to establish family courts, although I see that the Law Society's sub-committee argues that it would not require substantial additional resources. But the sub-committee accepts that, for example, the bench which it recommends for a first-tier family court would be more expensive than a bench consisting of lay magistrates who now hear many of these cases. That, again, is a subject bristling with issues which clearly require discussion.


I had hoped that we might have time in the course of tonight's debate to advert, for example, to the question of maintenance mentioned by the hon. Member for Cambridge. There are those who say that, in the absence of children, there is little room left for maintenance. Their reasoning is that if we succeed in making women's earnings potentially equal to those of men the argument for maintenance ceases, except in cases where one party is at a substantial disadvantage. That is one argument. The other is that frequently women's careers are interrupted while at the same time mens careers are proceeding.
Unhappily, I do not think that we have time to take the debate very much further this evening. In the nature of things, none of us could do more than indicate some of the problems, but my noble Friend will certainly consider what has been said in this debate. It may be that some of these issues would be best referred to the Law Commission, where it indicates that an investigation can usefully be undertaken. We know from experience

that when it undertakes an inquiry it is carried out with great care and thoroughness. I apprehend that it would warn my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor where it thinks that it lacks the time and the resources to carry out the necessary investigation.
There may be some questions which would be inappropriate for it to investigate. One example is its own view that it cannot usefully add to the existing knowledge and ideas on the merits of a system of family courts. But I hope that we shall have the benefit of a public debate in some form on all these questions. The time for legislation is not yet, but I hope that when it arrives we shall be able to legislate to embody a broad consensus, not only as to the details but as to the meaning and function of marriage and of the family. If this debate serves to encourage that process, my hon. Friend's initiative will have been worth while.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at thirteen minutes past Twelve o'clock.